With the Easter long weekend fast approaching, South Australia Police are encouraging all residents and people from interstate to stay at home in an effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19.
The best way to protect your health and the health of others is to stay at home. But for those who have to travel, please make sure you do so for essential reasons only.
People travelling from interstate into South Australia need to know that border control check points are still operating. You will be questioned regarding your travel plans. SA Police are also patrolling border areas and will stop people they find deliberately avoiding main roads.
If you are not able to satisfy the requirements of an essential traveller, you will still be able to enter South Australia, but you will be required to self-quarantine for 14 days when you get to the place you are staying. You are required to travel directly to that destination and remain there for the quarantine period.
SA Police are conducting periodic checks on people who have returned from interstate to ensure they are complying with the mandatory 14 days of self-quarantine.
Essential travelers are exempt from the 14 day self-quarantining requirement and a full explanation of what constitutes an essential traveler can be found at: https://www.covid-19.sa.gov.au/emergency-declarations.
The effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19 is a community-wide endeavor. Additional police resources will be deployed to regional areas in South Australia this long weekend to monitor travellers; conduct self-quarantine compliance checks; and enforce public gathering and social distancing rules.
The public is reminded that gatherings of more than 10 people are prohibited in South Australia and this applies in both private and public places. Individuals found to be breaching the formal Directions can face on the spot fines of $1,000 and businesses may be subject to a $5,000 on the spot fine. Serious incidence of non-compliance may result in a Court appearance and more substantial penalties.
In addition to monitoring our borders and enforcing Directions, SA Police are still focused on road safety and will still be out in force on our roads 24/7 to make sure people are doing the right thing. Officers will be actively conducting random mobile drink and drug driver testing.
In an effort to help reduce the number of lives lost from COVID-19 and to ease the strain on our frontline workers across the health and emergency services sectors, Commissioner of Police Grant Stevens is pleading with all South Australians to use stay home this Easter, use common sense and only travel for essential reasons over the long weekend.
“The strong advice, which has been repeated time and time again – is do not undertake any unnecessary travel, particularly across the upcoming Easter period,” he said.
“I fully appreciate the frustration of having to limit our social interaction, but I urge you to stay home and stay away from South Australian holiday destinations because we are trying to slow the spread of this virus across the state.
“The work that our health workers and our emergency services are doing is critical today and it will be just as critical for many days and months to come.
“This is a time when we need to help each other and the best way you can do that is by staying at home. Every single person in our community can help reduce the impact of COVID-19 in South Australia.
“We all have a role to play in this. For some people that means being a part of the essential workforce, providing those services that keep our community functioning; and for others, that simply involves staying safe at home and looking after our family, our friends, neighbours and even those we don’t know, by complying with the restrictions and Health advice.
“Two deaths in South Australia this week, from this virus serves as a stark reminder that despite the good numbers we’ve been seeing in terms of positive test results, this is a disease that has a dramatic impact on the safety and wellbeing vulnerable people.
“Our endeavour is to minimise that impact by ensuring people comply with the social distancing and crowd gathering rules that we’ve put in place. This includes practicing social distancing by leaving a 1.5 metre gap between yourself and others and by not having more than 10 people in a group.
“So far we have seen great compliance by South Australian’s abiding by the COVID-19 restrictions; and the advice from medical professionals but we must all keep up the good work and not become complacent.”
All of the South Australian Emergency Declarations and Directions can be found here: https://www.covid-19.sa.gov.au/emergency-declarations
Members of the public are reminded that they can call the SA COVID-19 Information Line on 1800 253 787 between the hours of 8.00am to 8.00pm 7 days per week.
