SA Minister For Health Stephen Wade Explains The Reasons For The Harsh New Restrictions

On the Rush Hour


Article heading image for SA Minister For Health Stephen Wade Explains The Reasons For The Harsh New Restrictions

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SA health minister Stephen Wade joined the Rush Hour with Bernie and Jars this afternoon and explained the reasons for the state’s harsh new restrictions.

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"This is a clear, scientific response to a challenge," Minister Wade said.

"All the cases in the Parafield cluster can be traced back to a single international traveller from the UK, and there are no unlinked cases.

"So clearly we have caught this very early, but it also means we’ve only got a limited window of opportunity.

"We’ve got good data which shows that the incubation period with this strain is very short, people are having little or no symptoms, and some of our recent cases have been infectious insights that risk more widespread transmission — for example the Woodville Pizza Bar, there’s an infection period of 10 days, there’s a lot of customers there.

"And it’s also, I think it’s important to understand that there is scientific evidence for surface transmission, and there’s even a suggestion that the delivery of pizza cases may involve a risk.

"So what we’re facing is a limited number of current identified cases, but a significant risk of unidentified cases, so the public health team’s advice to the police commissioner is that we should have a six day pause as a circuit breaker.

"It gives us an opportunity to stop the spread of the disease, it gives us an opportunity for the contact tracers to identify and isolate close contacts, and to be frank, six days is also an opportunity to try and tone down the infection within those cases that are already infected.

"So we’re strongly saying to people if you’re symptomatic, go and get tested, but for the whole community we need to have a united effort to slow down the movement to reduce transmission."

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Rudi Edsall

18 November 2020

Article by:

Rudi Edsall




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