South Australian Premier Steven Marshall has addressed media to reveal that one person in the COVID-19 cluster lied to contact tracing teams, meaning the state will open up sooner than expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“SA Health contact tracers have continued detailed case histories with confirmed cases. What those investigations showed is that one of the close contacts linked to the Woodville pizza bar deliberately misled our contact tracing team. Their story didn\u2019t add up. We pursued them. We now know that they lied. I stress this point, that this is still a very dangerous cluster and our expert health – our health experts remain extremely concerned.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Continuing, the SA Premier explained that just as they had acted swiftly to place restrictions and keep South Australians safe, they were also going to lift them much sooner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This lie still means that our contact tracers need breathing space to contact people but not for as long.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Effective immediately, exercise in family groups is now permitted. Effective as of midnight on Saturday, the stay at home order will be repealed. They will be replaced by new orders which the Police Commissioner will go through in a few moments time but will include a density arrangement of one per four square metres, 50 people at funerals, 10 people at private home gatherings and schools will become open again.”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Police Commissioner has said they aren\u2019t sure if they can impose penalties on the individual whose alleged lie caused the state to go into lockdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “My team will be looking at whether there are any mechanisms but my initial advice is whilst it is an obligation on people to provide information on request to an authorised officer under the emergency management act, there is no penalty associated with telling lies.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Continuing, the Premier explained:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The second consequence of that lie is this person has numerous associates, persons of interest that we are now trying to identify and locate that we would not have had to do so had they been truthful from the beginning. There is an absolute need for us to move quickly over the next 24 36 hours to identify and locate these people so we know we have eliminated the risk of this particular strain spreading further into the community.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The following restrictions will be relaxed from midnight on Saturday:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The other news is that schools will be returning on Monday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Image: Getty<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" South Australian Premier Steven Marshall has addressed media to reveal that one person in the COVID-19 cluster lied to contact tracing teams, meaning the state will open up sooner than expected. “SA Health contact tracers have continued detailed case histories with confirmed cases. What those investigations showed is that one of the close contacts linked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":43128,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[215],"tags":[],"geo_market":[],"class_list":["post-43127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n