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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-11-16 Daily Xml
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COVID-Ready Road Map

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:44): My question is to the Premier. After 23 November, will some fully vaccinated South Australians need to quarantine after being in the same place as a COVID-19 case for as little as 60 seconds? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr MALINAUSKAS: The documents circulated at yesterday's press conference said vaccinated South Australians need, and I quote, 'at least 15 minutes face to face contact with a COVID-19 case' to be a close contact. However, the contact tracing matrix provided for businesses reveals two ways that vaccinated people can end up in quarantine after just one minute of contact if only one person is wearing a mask. Which advice for the community and business is correct?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:45): As I was saying previously—and I thank the Leader of the Opposition for giving me the opportunity to speak and provide the house with an update on this—this is very important. As the risk comes down, we can have a greater level of tolerance in terms of some of those casual contacts. Nevertheless, a close contact is a close contact, and it will require the person to undertake a form of quarantine, and whether that be seven days or 14 days depends on their vaccination status.

There are many things which will come into the consideration given by the Communicable Disease Control Branch as to whether somebody remains a casual contact or indeed a close contact—for example, how long they come into face-to-face contact, like the Leader of the Opposition was suggesting. One of the basic elements of this is whether you are within 1½ metres for 15 minutes or more. Another area is the level of physical contact.

You could imagine being in close contact for 15 minutes would deliver a level of risk, so would a kiss, so would a handshake—this needs to be taken into context—whether both or one are fully vaccinated, whether both or one are wearing masks, whether it is indoor or whether it is outdoor and, of course, what the size of the space is that they are in.

This is why it is complex, but I am absolutely certain this is what is required, a more tailored approach, because if you just do the cookie-cutter approach and every single close or casual contact requires 14 days of quarantine you would end up putting thousands—in fact, I would suggest, tens of thousands of people—into quarantine who don't really need it as we progress into a more COVID-normal state.

The transmission potential of this disease, the Delta variant of this disease, without a vaccinated population, without TTIQ and without public health social measures, is around eight. This means for every person who gets it, they will give it to eight people, each of those eight people will give it to eight people, and we can see what will happen if this is left unchecked.

In fact, in New South Wales, in Victoria, in the ACT, they had no alternative but to lock down their entire population to stop the exponential spread of the disease. But they didn't waste their time while they were in lockdown: they made sure that they sold the message to get vaccinated.

We were very pleased in South Australia that we have had very few days lost because of a lockdown. We, too, haven't wasted our time. We have been educating the people of South Australia on the benefits associated with vaccination and we've got a very high vaccination level. That's what gives us the opportunity to have a differential, to move away from 14 days of quarantine to a more nuanced approach.

In answer to the leader's question, the circumstances in which somebody could have less than 15 minutes in 1½ metres would be if one of the parties were infected and, of course, the other one was kissing them, hugging them, embracing them, shaking their hand, because that's a physical contact. But for the very vast number of people who might come into contact with somebody who is infected—they might come into contact with them at a shopping centre—it wouldn't be a definite requirement for them to go into a form of quarantine because it might have a very low risk associated with it, especially if there was no physical contact, the parties were vaccinated and the parties were wearing a mask.

It is one of the reasons why we say in those indoor public spaces at the moment that we do want people to be wearing masks. We do want them to be doing it because it is difficult to do the tracing otherwise, and, of course, it will lessen the chance that they will have to do a full 14 days of quarantine should that person be infected with the coronavirus Delta variant.

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