New SA virus cases but no lockdown
South Australia has joined other states and territories in reporting new coronavirus infections but has avoided a lockdown with officials hopeful the outbreak is under control at this stage.
SA reported five new local cases on Wednesday involving a miner who recently returned from the Northern Territory, his wife and three of their children, all aged under 10.
The family was in isolation since the man's return giving authorities some confidence there will be no further community transmission.
However, SA Health is urgently retesting 28 other miners who returned from the same site last week.
They all returned negative results with their first tests.
Premier Steven Marshall says the new cases are a "concerning turn of events" but the family involved had done the right thing.
"South Australia is not going into a lockdown and I think many people will be extraordinarily relieved about that," he said.
Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier said officials had moved to require anyone on the same Alice Springs to Adelaide flight as the infected miner on Friday, to go into isolation.
More than 100 people who were on board VA1742 have already been contacted with a small number still to be notified.
Checking is also underway to identify any possible contacts at Adelaide Airport and at a suburban takeaway food outlet the man visited on his way home.
Both those locations are considered low risk.
Professor Spurrier said while the outbreak was regarded as contained at this stage, more work remained to be done and officials did not want the Delta strain of the virus to become widespread in the community.
"What we're seeing with this Delta variant is there's almost a 100 per cent hit rate for close contacts," she said.
