ADELAIDE – South Australia’s six-day “circuit-breaker” lockdown will be cut short, said officials today, blaming a pizza chef who misled contact tracers about how he contracted the virus.
Prime Minister Steven Marshall indicated that a tough lockdown for the state’s almost two million people will end late tomorrow, at least two days earlier than planned.
Marshall said a man who claimed he was a customer at a pizza parlour hotspot – leading authorities to believe the strain was virulent enough to be transmitted via a takeaway box – in fact worked there.
“One of the close contacts linked to the Woodville pizza bar deliberately misled our contact-tracing team.
“Their story didn’t add up. We pursued them. We now know that they lied.”
Red-faced authorities stressed that the costly lockdown was still necessary – and that pizza parlour customers should still come forward for testing.
On Wednesday, they ordered schools, shops, pubs, factories and even takeaway restaurants to close, and stay-at-home orders were issued for residents across the state.
Since then, tens of thousands of tests have shown no new community transmission, and the cluster totals only 25 cases, leading to accusations that authorities overreacted.
People in the state will be able to leave their homes immediately to exercise, and most other restrictions will be eased tomorrow. – AFP, November 20, 2020
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