COVID-19 Response

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Pangallo.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (15:33): Thank you, Mr Deputy President, and good to see you back in the chair. My questions are for the Minister for Health and Wellbeing:

1. What is the number of teachers and students infected by COVID since the start of the school year?

2. Who checked with all aged-care facilities in South Australia that they were prepared to live and die with COVID?

3. How many unboostered aged-care residents have died?

4. When did SA Health accept that two doses were inadequate against Omicron?

5. How has the public health plan changed now that the three doses may be required?

6. Why didn't the State Coordinator and the chief medical officer consider at any time before opening borders that other COVID variants were highly likely, as any competent health advice would have warned?

7. Does anyone accept any responsibility for the more than 110 deaths since 23 November?

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Pangallo, that was a number of questions. I am sure the minister will work his way through as many as he can, but you might need to refresh him at some stage.

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:34): I certainly will need assistance. In relation to the first one, the numbers in relation to currently infected children and teachers, I will seek further advice. In relation to the aged-care issue, I think the honourable member seems to be operating under a misapprehension, both in relation to his question and also in relation to the notice of motion that he has given for tomorrow.

The fact of the matter is that residential aged-care facilities are primarily funded and overseen by the commonwealth government. We certainly believe that citizens of nursing homes are of course South Australian citizens. They have every right to access SA Health services and we are very keen to work with the commonwealth to support outbreak responses.

In that regard, in line with the Communicable Diseases Network Australia guidelines, both the commonwealth and the state operate on the basis that an outbreak is declared when either a resident of a residential aged-care facility has been diagnosed with COVID and has been on the site during their infectious period, or when two or more staff are diagnosed with COVID-19 at the same time with at least one having worked at the residential aged-care facility while infectious. I think many people would be surprised at that because it's a relatively low bar, but we accept that, as I said, both the commonwealth and the state; we work on that basis.

That prefaces my remark in terms of current outbreaks. The status of COVID-19 outbreaks in South Australia is rapidly evolving, with new cases and recoveries advised daily. As of 24 January, there were 113 outbreaks open or being monitored, and these outbreaks included 189 active staff and 311 active residential cases of COVID-19. There were 27 residents at that time hospitalised with COVID-19, and 29 residential aged-care facilities' residents had died with COVID-19.

In relation to the collaboration between the commonwealth and the state, we have a joint protocol that we operate under, and an Aged Care Emergency Response Group meets every day. It is chaired by the Director of the Office for Ageing Well, which is a state government agency, and attended by representatives from the commonwealth, the Department of Health, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, the State Control Centre—Health, the Communicable Disease Control Branch, Clinpath and the Aged Rights Advocacy Service.

SA Health and the commonwealth work together to support residential aged-care facilities experiencing outbreaks, with clinical inreach teams coordinated by State Control Centre—Health deployed to high-risk sites as required. We will continue to work with the commonwealth and the operators of residential aged-care facilities to try to minimise both the morbidity and mortality within residential aged-care facilities.

In terms of the honourable member's assertion that the Chief Public Health Officer and the public health team are planning on the assumption that whichever variant we are dealing with at the time will be the last variant, I just dispute that. The public health team is constantly developing plans, and those plans of course foresee the possibility that there could be another variant.