The changes came after SA’s COVID-Ready Committee met earlier on Thursday, with Police Commissioner and state coordinator Grant Stevens announcing changes a short time ago.

From Saturday, a range of rules and density limits will change including:

• For hospitality venues, standup consumption will be allowed with density requirements eased to one person per two square metres indoors.
• If the venue has indoor seated consumption only, the density requirement will be three people per four square metres. If the venue has a combination of standing and seated consumption, the cap will be one per two square metres.
• Buffets are permitted, with no change to current outdoor hospitality arrangements.
• Private functions will be permitted with a one per two square metre density limit, capped at 150 people – with standup consumption, dancing and singing permitted.
• Residential gatherings remain capped at 50 people.
• Total easing of density limits for outdoor seated venues.

The state’s mask mandates for high-risk venues, indoor public places and on public transport, remain unchanged.

Stevens said the level of hospitalisations, current infection rates and vaccination numbers were factors in a decision to ease restrictions.

“The main consideration for us is the hospitalisation rates and ensuring that our health system is able to cope with additional cases in the community,” he said.

“Whilst we may have seen fluctuations of case numbers in South Australia, we haven’t seen that specifically translated to ongoing and increasing admission rates in our hospitals.

“So that is the key driver here.”

The easing comes as South Australia reported another 1735 new COVID-19 infections along with three more deaths today.

However, there was a significant fall in hospitalisations with the virus, down 50.

SA Health said on Thursday that two men in their 80s and another in his 60s were the latest virus-related deaths, taking the toll since the start of the pandemic to 172.

But it said the number of people in hospital had fallen to 142 from 192 the previous day.

Of those, 13 were in intensive care including four on ventilators.

Thursday’s case numbers follow the spike to 1958 new infections on Wednesday, almost 600 more than the previous day.

The increases this week were not unexpected considering the recent return of all students to schools, the start of the Fringe arts festival and changes to work-from-home guidelines with more people returning to offices.

Premier Steven Marshall said despite the rise in cases, fewer people as a percentage were being admitted to hospital.

“So I feel extremely confident that we’ll continue along that trajectory of making sure we can get back as normal a situation as possible,” he told reporters.

– with AAP