COVID-19 State Government Response

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (14:26): My question is to the Premier. What does the detailed Doherty modelling say about how many COVID cases South Australia will face at its peak?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:27): I think I answered that with the previous question, but I am happy to go through it again because it is actually important. The model is dependent on a range of inputs and it really does depend on what our vaccination rate is here in South Australia and at what point in time, what the rate of infection is interstate in those people and the movement across the border. The public health social measures that we have in place here—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The Premier has the call. The room has been particularly orderly and calm so far and it will well serve our purposes for it to remain that way.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: Thank you very much for your protection, sir. As I was saying, the major input is really for how long we will keep that test, trace, isolate and quarantine in place. The original Doherty model said there were two versions of TTIQ: there was the partial and the optimal. I pointed out that we were beyond both partial and optimal in South Australia. They said, 'Yes, we refer to that as extreme,' but it has been one of the elements that has kept South Australia extraordinarily safe.

We have been very pleased with cooperation that we have had. We have had the famous Spurrier 'ring around the ring'. This is one of the reasons why we have been able to stop dead in South Australia the spread of that community transmission which has plagued places for such a long period of time. People have said to me, 'The reason you don't have community transmission in South Australia is because they are much more densely populated in Sydney and Melbourne. They have far fewer people.' Last time I looked, the ACT doesn't have as many people as South Australia; in fact, many country towns in Victoria and New South Wales have had this community transmission.

The reality is that this is a disease which doesn't look at the postcode that it's operating in, but what it is is a disease which moves with the mobility of people. So we have been very keen, when we know that somebody is at a higher potential for becoming infected, to put them into an isolation environment. We know that this has come with great penalty to people who have been caught up in that, but what we also know is that it has been what has protected South Australia.

What we also know is that we have been keen to put additional resources in place to cope with the likely increased numbers. We have put that in place, with many more beds and resources than we envisage will come to South Australia, but we still need to get that vaccination rate up. Professor Spurrier said today only in the last hour that SA Health will be releasing the modelling, but it needs to be interpreted carefully because there are many inputs into this model.

What we do know is that it was not safe for us to be opening up our borders for people to come in weeks ago. What we do know is that by 23 November we expect that our double-vaccinated rate for those 16 and over will be up at 80 per cent. That gives us an opportunity to bring that disease into South Australia in a controlled and careful way, but it doesn't mean the removal of internal restrictions and it doesn't mean the end of test, trace, isolate and quarantine.

It doesn't mean the end of the QR code reader because we still need to be able to have our contact tracers, the people who work at the Communicable Disease Control Branch, to be able to rapidly identify people who could have come into close contact with somebody who had a highly infectious disease and to identify them and then take appropriate action. That could be quarantine, it could be isolation, it could be the monitoring of symptoms or some tests and isolation before release. All those decisions, we leave up to the health professionals.

It is a complex management of COVID. I think South Australians have great trust in South Australia Police, SA Health and the government to be able to keep them safe and our economy strong, but the most important ingredient is the ongoing cooperation of the people of South Australia.