The State Government of South Australia (SA) announced major changes to isolation requirements for contacts of COVID-19 cases ahead of border reopening.
Steven Marshall, the premier of the Australian state, on Monday, announced that from Nov. 23, fully vaccinated South Australians, who were deemed a close contact of a coronavirus case, would only have to quarantine for seven days.
Fully vaccinated casual contacts would only be required to self-isolate until they tested negative for COVID-19.
Currently, anyone deemed a contact of a positive case in SA must quarantine for 14 days regardless of their vaccination status.
“We will be very, very significantly reducing the test, trace, isolate and quarantine requirements,’’ Marshall told reporters.
“In the past, we’ve had to take a pretty heavy-handed approach, quite frankly, because a single case could set off a cluster, which would lock down our state.’’
The change would coincide with SA opening its borders to fully vaccinated travelers from the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), New South Wales and Victoria when it was expected to reach 80 per cent of over-16s fully vaccinated on Nov. 23.
It would mark the first time since August that travelers from those regions, which were under COVID-19 lockdowns in the past months and account for more than half the Australian population, would be allowed into SA without quarantining for 14 days.
“We are going to do it in a careful and considered way.
“In the first instance, we are only going to have those people who are fully vaccinated able to come into South Australia,’’ Marshall said.
“We know this is going to be a huge relief for families, for businesses, those state borders have been extraordinarily punishing.’’
On Monday, Australia reported 1,035 new locally-acquired COVID-19 cases, all of which were in the ACT, NSW and Victoria with six deaths, as the country continues to battle the third wave of the pandemic.
The majority of new cases were in Victoria, the country’s second-most populous state with Melbourne as the capital city, where 860 cases and five deaths were reported.
As of Sunday, 90.5 per cent of Australians aged 16 and older had received one vaccine dose and 83.2 per cent were fully inoculated, according to the latest data released by the Department of Health. (Xinhua/NAN)
