COVID-19 Hotel Quarantine

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:45): My question is to the Premier. How long does the Premier expect to use medi-hotels for COVID-19 quarantine in South Australia?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:46): As Professor Nicola Spurrier says, we don't have a crystal ball when it comes to this coronavirus, but what we do have is more and more information coming in on a daily basis. We take that information, we benchmark ourselves against other jurisdictions overseas, some of which are further down the track in terms of their vaccination program, and that helps us plan out the way that we are responding here in Australia.

The leader would be aware that there have been some road maps which have been published previously by the national cabinet, but we do, whenever they are published, emphasise that really they are subject to change. We know that this is a disease that we are learning more and more about all the time. We know from evidence already coming in from jurisdictions with high-level vaccination rates that we have seen the death rate, the infection rate and the escalation of severity of the illness rate, significantly plummet as a high proportion of the population gets vaccinated. It is one of the reasons why we are doing everything we can to lift our run rate here in South Australia in terms of vaccination.

That's one of the reasons why we have opened a mass vaccination clinic at Wayville, a mass vaccination clinic in Mount Gambier, a mass vaccination clinic at Noarlunga and on Monday of next week we will be opening up a mass vaccination clinic at Playford. We are also the first place in the country to open up a comprehensive vaccination program for those over the age of 16. The Northern Territory moved first with two or I think three remote clinics for those over the age of 16. We opened up 35 here so that those over the age of 16 can go along and get their Pfizer jab. Those over the age of 50 will get their AstraZeneca jab. We have excess capacity because of the excellent work that SA Health has done in consultation with the country LHNs.

When we came to government, we had a single country health LHN. Since coming to government, we have created six country LHNs and they are very responsive to their local communities. I was very proud when South Australia became the first place in the country where the AstraZeneca dose was administered. That was done at the Murray Bridge Soldiers' Memorial Hospital in the member for Hammond's seat. That was administered to Dr Caroline Phegan, who is in fact the medical director of the Riverland Mallee Coorong LHN, a very important LHN in South Australia.

We are constantly looking at ways that we can increase the vaccination rate, because we know that as we get that underway we are going to reduce our reliance on other interventions, like QR codes, like density arrangements, like medi-hotels and the like. But until that position comes, we are not prepared to take the risk. We have listened to the experts since day one. It has put us in very good stead. We will continue to listen to the experts, making sure that we can keep our state safe and, of course, that means our economy strong.