More than 100 COVID-19 cases recorded in South Australia, long test lines in Adelaide

South Australia has registered 105 new cases of COVID-19, a record number for a day, with five new exposure sites also announced.

Five people are now hospitalized and 39 infections have been confirmed in known contacts of local cases, one was of interstate origin and 65 more are under investigation.

Two men and three women are hospitalized at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, but neither are in intensive care.

It is the fourth day for South Australia’s record number of cases.

There are now 406 active cases.

Previously, the record number of active cases in South Australia was 361 on April 4, 2020.

However, Mr Marshall said the focus should be on the low number of hospital admissions.

“I am very happy to say that so far no one has had to go to intensive care, no one has had to go on a ventilator in South Australia.”

SA Health also identified five new exhibition venues in Adelaide and West Beach, including a cinema, restaurant and nightclub.

The Mars Bar nightclub was considered a close-up exhibition site on Saturday December 11 between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m.

The update to the exhibit site is SA Health’s first in two days.

Call for more testing resources

There have been long lines at Adelaide testing centers, particularly at the clinic in Victoria Park, in the Adelaide Parklands.

Opposition health spokesman Chris Picton said more should have been done to add additional capacity to the system in recent days as cases have increased.

“It is totally unacceptable that the resources have not been put in place to ensure that South Australians can take a test in a timely manner,” he said.

“Everyone knew that when the borders opened, there would be massive demands for people coming from state to state, as well as people at exhibit venues needing testing.”

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Mr Marshall said SA Pathology and the private clinics were working well, as the number of tests exceeded 19,000 per day.

They were only 3,000 before the opening of the eastern state borders on November 23.

Professor Spurrier highlighted the shortage of workers and international students, rather than a lack of funding, to staff COVID-19 testing stations.

She said that while “you can spend that much money on something” SA was “a small state” with a limited number of workers.

“There is a shortage of people in all areas because our international borders have been closed,” she said.

“We have certainly recruited, employed and trained many people to do contact tracing and the same is true of SA Pathology.

“As a community we just have to keep in mind that there are only a certain number of people in South Australia who can do this work.”

Problems with vaccine reservations for children

As of today, parents in South Australia can book children between the ages of five and 11 for a COVID-19 vaccine, however, the SA Health website does not list any clinics offering injections.

“If there have been any problems with this reservation system, we apologize, but this will be rectified soon,” the prime minister said.

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It comes a week after hundreds of attendees at Willunga Elementary School‘s end-of-year assembly were quarantined after the presence of a positive COVID case.

The young pupils of the school will come out of their 14 days of quarantine at 12:01 a.m. on Christmas Day.

The locations of the exposure sites have not been updated since Saturday evening, although the state sees four consecutive days of daily case records.

Good test results in APY Lands

Communities on APY lands have been cleared of the virus for now, after it was detected in sewage water in Indulkana and Pipalyatjara a week ago.

The APY Lands executive released a statement confirming that the virus was no longer present in the sewage results and that all residents had tested negative for the virus.

He also reinstated the unlimited sale of fuel and the withdrawal of cash from ATMs.

Both measures were limited during the week to encourage residents to stay in their communities to stop the potential spread of the virus.

Teams of healthcare workers have traveled to remote communities to test residents, offer vaccines and monitor sewage results over the past week.

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