COVID-19 Hospital Response

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:13): My question is to the Premier. Why will there be a buffer of restrictions maintained post 23 November if our hospital system is equipped to be ready with living with COVID?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:14): I have explained that extensively in the media and already in my previous answer, but the Doherty model provided to the national cabinet, for all of those who were paying attention, made it very clear that those border restrictions could end but we needed to keep what was called TTIQ public health social measures in place as we increase that vaccination rate.

It all comes down to the transmission potential for this disease—left without any vaccination, no TTIQ, no public health social measures, there is a reproduction rate of around eight: so for every person who gets infected, they are going to pass it on to eight people and one of those eight people is going to pass it on to another eight people and so on and so forth. It's exponential and would overwhelm our health system.

That's why in other jurisdictions like New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and of course Victoria, they have had no choice but to lock down their entire communities—some jurisdictions for months and months over the past 19 months that the world has been dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

We have been fortunate in South Australia that this hasn't been the case. We haven't had widespread community transmission and so we haven't had to have the same level of public health social measures in place. When we get to 23 November, we rule out having statewide lockdowns, but more than that we rule out whole-of-state lockouts. But it doesn't mean we just have the freedom day that you see heralded around the world where all restrictions are removed.

The Doherty model is clear that we need to keep test, trace, isolate and quarantine arrangements in place. That means if somebody does become infected, they will need to go into quarantine and their close contacts will need to go into quarantine for the foreseeable future. This will, if you like, delay the spread of the Delta variant in South Australia. Every day that we move forward, we are increasing the vaccination, we are increasing that projection, we are reducing that risk.

The second thing is to have those public health social measures in place. Different jurisdictions will interpret this differently. There is some modelling which will be coming back to the national cabinet, but we have commissioned our own modelling here in South Australia. I think it's fair enough that we do have differential arrangements, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, to take into account density arrangements, the make-up of the community, the way in which a community responds to public health advice.

I have to say, in South Australia, I feel very proud that we are a state that listens to the explanations provided by the experts, by evidence, by science, and then accordingly adjusts the way that they behave. That's one of the reasons why we have been able to keep the Delta variant at bay for such an extended period of time, but it is inevitable that it will come in and that's why we have to do everything we can to improve our preparedness.

What I can say is that other states will choose their own course. We have already heard, for example, that some states will be delaying opening up their borders until they get to 90 per cent or when they get to 12 and over, or when they get to the new year. We have decided to continue to listen to the experts and implement that national agreed framework for dealing with the advent of the Delta variant coming into South Australia.

The next stage, when we get to 90 per cent double-vaccinated for those 12 and over—which I'm hopeful will be by the end of this year—we will be able to remove the vast majority of those restrictions. I think this will be a very happy day for South Australians, but I do take this opportunity once again to place on the record my grateful thanks to all South Australians who have endured some pretty tough times. They have made some big sacrifices: individual sacrifices, business sacrifices. Those collective sacrifices, though, of course, have been the ones that have kept our state safe and our economy strong.