A total of 709 students and 334 staff reported positive COVID-19 cases in the seven days up until Friday, according to Education Minister Blair Boyer.

The numbers are an increase on the end of term three when 295 students and 72 teachers reported positive tests, Boyer said.

“It’s definitely an increase and it’s steadily gone up as I’ve watched it over the last few weeks,” he told ABC Radio Adelaide today.

“We are close to the end of the school year, we only have about three weeks left to go … so that means we’ll get a natural kind of reset there.”

Boyer said this wave of school infections is much lower than that observed in term one when 5620 students and 847 staff reported positive cases at the end of the term.

He said two schools – Salisbury Park Primary School and Noarlunga Downs Primary School – had moved to wearing face masks to combat a rise in infections.

Schools can introduce a two-week mask-wearing period if five or more cases are detected in five separate classes.

“The system is under pressure but not like what we were seeing in term one and term three,” Boyer said.

“Student attendance is up at around 89 per cent: at the end of term one we were at 81 per cent, end of term two 83 per cent.”

The rise in school cases is in line with a rise across the state.

SA Health on Friday reported 9000 new cases in the past week, with 140 people with COVID-19 in hospital, including 11 patients in intensive care.

SA Health figures show there were 6601 active cases in the state at midnight on Thursday, with cases more than doubling in the past four weeks.