South Australia ‘moves into lockdown’ after five COVID cases associated with Modbury Hospital man

South Australia will go into lockdown from 6:00pm tonight, after health authorities confirmed the state’s outbreak is the Delta strain.

They have so far identified five cases linked to the current cluster.

The lockdown will last for seven days.

The fifth case was identified in a diner who went to The Greek on Halifax restaurant on Saturday night at the same time as a contact of the original case — a man who came back from Argentina earlier this month.

“We hate putting these restrictions in place but we believe we have one chance to get this right,” Mr Marshall said.

A fourth case was announced earlier this morning, but Mr Marshall said the fifth case — not from among the original family —  was “far more worrying”.

“We have no alternative but to impose some fairly heavy and immediate restrictions to come in — at 6:00pm tonight South Australia moves into lockdown,” the Premier said.

From 6:00pm, the only reasons to leave home will be to care for someone, for essential work, to purchase essential goods such as food, exercise with people from the same household and healthcare — including COVID testing and vaccination.

Support for businesses is expected to be announced tomorrow.

Schools will be closed from tomorrow with a 24-hour transition period in place for teachers to arrange at-home learning. 

More to come.