South Australia’s coronavirus lockdown led by the lie from a pizza shop worker

After months of no COVID-19 cases outside of hotel quarantine, South Australians learned of some worrying developments on Sunday.

A woman in her 80s tested positive to the virus at the Lyell McEwin Hospital emergency department in Adelaide.

It soon became apparent the woman had caught the virus from her daughter, a cleaner at the Peppers medi-hotel in the Adelaide CBD, one of several sites across the city where international travellers undergo isolation.

By Monday, most of the woman’s extended family were considered to be COVID cases, and contact tracing was underway at dozens of sites across the city.

By Tuesday, the cluster had expanded to include two security guards who had worked at the Peppers hotel.                                                   

One of the guards worked a second job at the Woodville Pizza Bar. About the same time, another case of COVID-19 emerged — a worker at a separate CBD quarantine hotel, the Stamford.

Contact tracers initially struggled to identify the source of transmission. But after interviewing the Stamford worker, established he had ordered takeaway from the pizza bar.

Had the virus been spread by a pizza delivery?

The Chief Public Health Officer was already worried that the virus seemed to be reproducing rapidly.

A public health alert was issued, urging anyone who had ordered food from, or attended the pizza bar over a 10-day period to immediately isolate and seek a coronavirus test.

Then authorities took more drastic action — forcing South Australians to remain at home for six days, shutting down businesses, schools and industry.

This was not a Victorian-style lockdown, they insisted, but a “circuit breaker” designed to buy some breathing space for contact tracers to catch up.

Tellingly, the closure also included takeaway food outlets, which had remained open through earlier shutdowns.

The lie exposed

With the state locked down, and contact tracing happening at a furious rate, not everything was adding up.

Soon it became clear. At a press conference on Friday morning, the Premier Steven Marshall dropped a bombshell — revealing police investigations had established that the alleged “pizza customer” had lied.

He had, in fact, worked in the pizza bar, and had been a close contact of the other infected worker.

The Government and police were furious — they had shut down the state based upon a lie. That decision had already had tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars of economic impact.

Does Steven Marshall take responsibility for the lockdown? 

Reporter: Premier, you said you were using this one man that essentially sparked this harshest lockdown but it was you and your government that made the decision to do that. Do you take responsibility for that? Do you owe people of South Australia an apology?

Steven Marshall: Can I just say, as of day one, we have been really clear on how we are handling this pandemic and that is listen to experts and take action. We have done that, we have listened to experts, they presented us with information and we acted swiftly and decisively to keep the people of South Australia protected.

I don’t want anyone watching this telecast to think that the risks are over. While the risk is far more diminished [but] the risk is still there, it is a real risk that we need to adhere very strictly to the restrictions.