CANBERRA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Authorities in South Australia (SA) have launched an investigation into the lie that triggered the state's coronavirus lockdown.
Premier Steven Marshall said on Friday that the "circuit breaker" lockdown would end on Saturday night, three days earlier than planned. It was previously revealed that one of the state's confirmed COVID-19 cases lied to contact tracers about how he became infected.
The man first told authorities that he contracted the virus purchasing a pizza from a restaurant, but Marshall said on Friday that he was employed there, increasing exposure to a fellow employee who has tested positive for COVID-19.
SA Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said on Saturday that a taskforce consisting of 20 senior detectives would investigate if any laws had been breached.
"Had this person been more upfront with us, we would not have instituted a six-day lockdown," he said.
On Saturday morning, SA reported one new case in the past 24 hours, which was a close contact of a previous case and linked to the Parafield cluster, the northern suburbs of Adelaide, capital city of the state.
"We are not out of the woods yet," Marshall said. "We are still managing a very dangerous cluster, and although we are reducing those restrictions, we are still very concerned about this cluster and there are still many people we need to identify and put into a quarantine situation."
As of midnight on Saturday, hospitality venues in SA will re-open with a maximum capacity of 100 people, weddings will return with a cap of 150 and funerals will be allowed to have 50 attendees. Enditem
