Vax rate key to lock threat

THE risk of Tasmania going into another snap lockdown is fading as vaccination rates rise, Premier Peter Gutwein says.

Mr Gutwein on Monday announced the three-day lockdown would end at 6pm on Monday as scheduled after no further cases of Covid-19 were detected in the state’s south.

Some restrictions – most notably mask wearing and restrictions on visiting hospitals and nursing homes – will remain in place until the end of the week.

Mr Gutwein said the results of 1463 Covid tests on Sunday had yielded no positive results. The short, sharp lockdown will be followed by a “snap back”.

“What I’m very pleased to say is that we’re on top of this and as of tonight, at 6pm, as per the plan, the lockdown will be lifted,” he said on Monday.

Mr Gutwein said the lockdown had been a prudent and necessary response.

“Experience in other jurisdictions has indicated that with Delta, you can never be too early, you can only be too late,” he said.

“I’ve always been of the view that the harder you work, the luckier you get.

“In this case, obviously we have been fortunate. This individual was in the community, he did test positive and importantly, we’ve seen no community transmission.”

Mr Gutwein said that lockdowns became less likely under the national Covid plan as vaccination rates climbed.

“I would hope that this is the last lockdown,” he said.

The government would stick to plans to release a road map for reopening borders in the coming days, Mr Gutwein said.

State health commander Katherine Morgan-Wicks said the state was at 89 per cent single dose and 68.5 per cent double dose vaccination rates – with 304,076 people fully vaxxed. Tasmania is expected to reach the milestone of 70 per cent of those aged over 16 fully vaccinated on Wednesday, 80 per cent by Melbourne Cup Day next month and 90 per cent by December 1.

Southern Tasmania was put into lockdown for three days from 6pm on Friday.

It was sparked by concerns over the movements of a 31year-old NSW man who absconded from hotel quarantine on October 11 and was discovered to be infected with Covid.

The man was in the Bridgewater community for about 18 hours before police tracked him down.

Public Health Director Dr Mark Veitch said the decision to call the lockdown was justified as a preventive measure but nearly a week after most of the identified 168 close contacts had been placed into quarantine, the worst of the risk had passed.

“It’s one of the paradoxes actually of preventive measures generally,” he said.

“Sometimes you take measures to prevent adverse outcomes at a population level. And in this instance, there was substantial risk out there.

“We knew that this person who was in the infectious phase of his illness was out in the community for 18 hours, he had been to places that we were only just identifying and could plausibly even now have been somewhere that we haven’t identified.

“That’s a high-risk situation for Tasmania, and we were

moving and mixing like it’s 1999, really.

“We had to put measures in place that prevented the risk of transmission beyond the people who had been in contact with the case.”

Fears of an outbreak centred on the community of Bridgewater.

Brighton Mayor Leigh Gray has thanked residents, the state government and the Department of Health after a busy weekend of testing and vaccinations at clinics locally and citywide.

“The local testing and vaccination over the past few days and compliance with lockdown and health regulations has been exceptional,” he said.

“The way that everyone behaved over the last few days, demonstrates what a resilient, caring and responsible community we have here.”

Tasmania Police’s Deputy Commissioner Donna Adams said public compliance with the requirements of the lockdown had been high.

“There have been some really nice examples of police interacting well with members of the community,” she said.

“Out in Bridgewater, we had a group of young people in a park and police providing those young people with a mask so that they could comply with the requirements in terms of mask wearing.”

About 500 vehicles had been checked at boundary checkpoints and only 37 turned back. There have been 13 infringement notices issued and three fines for failing to wear masks or leaving home without a permitted reason.