Five travellers from Adeliade are in isolation awaiting COVID-19 test results after displaying symptoms. Photo: File.
Five people from Adelaide are in isolation awaiting the results of COVID-19 tests after displaying symptoms when they arrived in Canberra on a flight yesterday evening (16 November).
ACT Health is meeting all inbound flights from Adelaide at Canberra Airport for health screenings. According to ACT Health, no one with symptoms refused to be tested yesterday and have been classified as low-risk.
“Testing will be available at Canberra Airport from tonight [Monday] for anyone travelling from South Australia with COVID-19 symptoms, and we strongly recommend symptomatic travellers get tested,” an ACT Health spokesperson said.
“The public health response team will provide travellers with information on COVID-19 symptoms and locations in the ACT where they can undergo testing if they develop symptoms while in the ACT.
“Any travellers who have a COVID-19 test must self-isolate until they receive a negative result.”
Another flight arrived in Canberra from Adelaide this morning and a second will land at 1:20 pm. Around 250 passengers were on last night’s flight from Adelaide to Canberra. There were 75 arrivals on this morning’s flight but no one needed to be tested, ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said.
ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said those who have been tested were classified as low-risk. Photo: Dominic Giannini.
Eight flights are set to touch down in Sydney and all will be screened.
There is no need for Canberrans in Adelaide to change their travel plans at the moment, Ms Stephen-Smith said, but warned that travel arrangements and quarantine requirements may change in the future.
However, anyone intending to visit a health facility, a hospital or aged care facility will not be let in as South Australia has been added to the list of hotspots.
“If you have something scheduled in one of our health services or are planning to visit someone, please do not visit,” Ms Stephen-Smith said.
“If you absolutely need to attend a health appointment or visit someone, please get in contact with the health facility and have a conversation with them about that because you will not be able to get in if you have been in South Australia in the last 14-days.”
The ACT and NSW are the only jurisdictions to have imposed no restrictions on travellers from Adelaide after yesterday’s spike in cases.
One new COVID-19 case has been confirmed in South Australia today, bringing the total number of active cases to 20.
Ms Stephen-Smith said the spike in cases was a testament to the rapid contact tracing of SA authorities.
“We need to remember that we have consistently seen new cases and clusters in NSW and NSW has been able to respond to those very appropriately,” she said.
“[Adelaide] has an identified cluster of cases and at this point in time, it is a single cluster, we are not seeing widespread community transmission. The reason we saw these cases come through so quickly is that when they identified that one case they did contact tracing and all of those people went and got tested and they are identifying those connected cases very quickly.
“It is a similar situation to what we have seen in NSW, slightly larger numbers but a similar situation to what we have seen in Moss Vale where we went from one to five people very quickly but then that cluster did not grow.”
SA Health has released an extensive list of times and locations linked to the latest COVID-19 cases. For a full list, visit SA Health.
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