South Australia dodges a Covid bullet

Yesterday it was reported how a young girl who entered SA from Victoria tested positive and consequently returned home to Victoria with her family. Everyone involved did the right thing and most likely it was all under control. However it could have been different. If any one of a number of events was slightly different it could have unknowingly seeded the Delta strain of Covid in SA.

While the family was en route they received an SMS from the Vic Health to say that the girl was a close contact of a known Covid case. Consequently she was promptly tested and the result came back quickly. If Vic Health had not sent the SMS. Things may have been different if the phone had not been checked or was out of power. Things may have different if other people had been too close at a toilet stop.

There were reports in the newspaper of so many cars crossing the border on the first day it was impossible to check them all.

It has become much clearer to me why the borders have been opened up.

First, let us look at some of the things thatare not reasons.

It was not done for the emotional well being of South Australians. There is clearly a lot of concern about the possibility of outbreaks of the highly contagious and more virulent Delta strain of Covid.

It was not done to improve SA public health. See above.

It is not a gift to ordinary South Australians. The premier has said it is a reward to SA for having no community cases of Covid for so long. Please, no more rewards. Anyway this is a lie.

It was not done to reunite families. If this was the case it would it would have been easy to allow only returning residents to SA. I magine very few of the 60,000 people who are coming from interstate are returning residents.

It was done because Delta will get to SA anyway. This is another lie as it is not the reason. This meme is spread with the aim of making opening the borders more acceptable.

One reason may be the belief that there is a Federal election coming up and opening up everywhere will help get Scomo re-elected.

This decision is a high risk strategy and if it backfires could get the current state government voted out at the next election.

I will mention what I see as the real reason in my next post.

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