CANBERRA, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- The premier of South Australia (SA) said on Monday that the state avoided a second wave of COVID-19 by acting on an outbreak early.
Steven Marshall said the state could have been facing 100 new cases of COVID-19 per day in December if swift action was not taken to suppress the outbreak linked to the cluster in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, capital city of the state.
The statewide "circuit breaker" lockdown ended at midnight on Saturday, three days earlier than previously planned. The state reported one new case of COVID-19 on Monday, bringing the total number of associated cases with the cluster to 27.
"We have avoided this second wave, avoiding 100 cases per day by mid-December," Marshall said.
"I'm feeling very positive and very optimistic that and as we head into Christmas that we will be experiencing newfound freedoms and celebrating well, with all of our family and friends."
Nicola Spurrier, South Australia's Chief Public Health Officer, said the new case had been in quarantine since last Monday. And the woman had returned two negative tests before testing positive on this Monday morning.
"It absolutely tells us that anybody who has been asked to be in quarantine needs to be in quarantine for the whole 14 days because there are people who have that very much longer incubation period," Spurrier said, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
As of Sunday afternoon, there had been 27,821 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia, and the number of new cases in last 24 hours is 14, according to the latest figures updated on Sunday from the Department of Health.
