Coronavirus

The Hon. J.S. LEE (15:18): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing about community health. As we are all grateful that South Australians have united in tackling the coronavirus better than most places in the world, will the minister please update the council on community health during the COVID-19 pandemic?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:19): I thank the honourable member for her question. In the context of community health, before I start addressing the answer, I pay tribute to the work the Hon. Jing Lee did in the early stages of the pandemic to help engage the Chinese community. It was a very stressful time, and she provided great leadership.

The Marshall Liberal government recognised early the threat of COVID-19 and our response, based on the advice of our outstanding public health officers, has seen the state move successfully from the containment phase to the suppression phase after the first wave. This has given us the opportunity to reopen our economy sooner than expected, providing South Australians with the opportunity to return to work and enjoy their social life again. However, we cannot become complacent. We need to maintain a vigilant public health regime while supporting the state's economic recovery.

A key part of maintaining our vigilance is building our capacity to identify any new cases early on and, with rapid contact tracing and isolation, preventing the virus spreading. The government has worked to prepare for this stage. SA Pathology has rapid testing available for urgent cases, and we have significantly boosted the contact tracing team in the Communicable Disease Control Branch.

The commonwealth's COVIDSafe app will also support our efforts. I urge South Australians to download and activate the app. Of course, the government recognises that not everybody will find it easy to navigate smart phone technology to download and use the app. I know that both the Premier and I have had the privilege to sit down with members of our family and help them put the app on the phone.

To provide assistance to the wider community, the Interim Chief Pharmacist, Naomi Burgess, has contacted over 500 pharmacies in South Australia, seeking their assistance in both promoting the COVIDSafe app as well as promoting our Keep Well, Keep Connected campaign. As honourable members will recall, the Keep Well, Keep Connected campaign is trying to remind South Australians that they should not allow their concern in relation to COVID-19 to distract them from maintaining oversight of their ongoing health issues, particularly chronic issues.

Pharmacists are ideally placed in the community to provide assistance and to raise awareness, particularly among some more vulnerable people who visit pharmacies more frequently for ongoing medical needs. Following the contact from the Interim Chief Pharmacist, SA Health has provided flyers to pharmacies in relation to both the Keep Well, Keep Connected campaign and in relation to the COVIDSafe app to promote the campaign.

Certainly, SA Health is using both mainstream media and social media to promote the COVIDSafe app. I am going to take the opportunity this afternoon to make my little contribution to encourage every member of this house and anybody who might be listening on the facilities of the parliament to take the opportunity to download the COVIDSafe app.

There certainly has been talk that there is some sort of magical threshold we need to reach to be able to have an effective contact tracing mechanism. The federal Chief Medical Officer stressed that every sign-up helps. None of us know the circumstances where, in the future, we might be sitting alongside somebody who turns out to be a positive case. To be able to support our public health clinicians to identify people who have been close contacts of positive cases is a great support for them to be able to trace and isolate possible contact.

I would like to thank South Australian pharmacies for their support for this initiative. It is another way that we can see the South Australian community has come together to combat the pandemic. I urge all South Australians to remain vigilant in physical distancing and personal hygiene, and of course to download the COVIDSafe app.