SA to ease quarantine requirements for visitors from Sydney

Announced today by SA's Police Commissioner Grant Stevens, from 12.01am on 31 January arrivals from Sydney into SA will be required to isolate for one day and receive a COVID-19 test.

If that day one test comes back negative they will be free to move into the community. However, they will still need to get tested on days five and 12 on arrival in SA.

"If someone does provide a positive test on day one, their exposure to the community has been dramatically limited so we can wrap that up in a close contact arrangement," said Stevens.

Further, from this Sunday, those already completing two weeks of quarantine will be permitted to leave isolation if they have already tested negative for the coronavirus.

Stevens said the easing of restrictions can be done because Sydney has gone 12 days without community transmission. But if another local COVID-19 case is discovered the restrictions could be reimposed.

Ultimately, he hopes to be able to fully remove restrictions in the coming days.

"We're trying to find that middle ground position where we're protecting South Australians, but enabling as much travel as possible between the states and territories," Stevens said.

"We continue to monitor the situation in New South Wales and as soon as we can remove that PCR testing obligation we will certainly be doing that, but we're waiting to see how that unfolds."

NSW reported no new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 today, but three infections were detected from overseas arrivals in hotel quarantine.

Updated at 1.18pm AEDT on 28 January 2021.