Commenting on the story: SA’s new COVID rules after November 23

It is still not clear what are the rules to travel to SA from Nov 23 – is it a requirement to have a negative COVID test as well as being double vaxed?

Does a test need to be done on arrival? And what is an LGA with community transmission (how do you know?) – is this the same as a hot-spot? Could be a lot clearer! – Rhod McDonald

We still haven’t been told what the situation is with children under 12 (who are not yet eligible for vaccination) accompanying doubly-vaccinated parents into SA for Christmas.

How can people make plans to visit SA if they don’t know whether their children are eligible to enter? Requiring unvaccinated under-12s to quarantine would be difficult, not to say unfair. – Penelope Curtin

Why is it going to be open slather, yet hospitality venues are pushed to the wall. Surely it would have made sense to relax those restrictions and monitor the results before allowing unvaccinated people from other states in. – Karen Butler

Great news, but I still can’t find out if I need a permit to travel from 23/11. – Jessie Howett

So we open to travel to and from Sydney 23 November, except if you travel through Sydney CBD you will have to quarantine for 14 days even if fully vaxxed.

My business has a trip arranged to Sydney CBD for two days of business in December (arranged after the 23 Nov announcement) and now we find out this! Simply not good enough Mr Premier. – Peter Jackson

On behalf of casual workers, I ask who will pay their wages for the one/two weeks when they are forced to self-isolate because the state government has decided to let the virus in to South Australia? How much less could the government care about South Australians? – Sue Fleming

I cannot for a single second understand why people who are not vaccinated be allowed to come to our state. – Russell Bilsborrow

Why is the premier allowing unvaccinated people in from the eastern states? That is unacceptable. Stick with the vaccinated plan. – Helen Walker

About time South Australia had a plan about Covid, other than lock out the rest of the country.

I work in Victoria, but live in South Australia, and have been locked out of home. No exemption for me, as my priority is low, and the “exemptions team” are working slower than the number of applications require.

Bureaucracy never did get in the way of good sense. I am double-vaxed, super vexed  and have been tested 38 times as at today. Still negative, and my application could be assessed and approved in 30 seconds – if ever it gets assessed before 23rd November. Which it won’t, because there is no need to let me go home, is there?

Ah, a dispassionate bureaucracy at its very best. – Michael Ashby

Commenting on the story: ‘We got it wrong’: SA Health boss concedes failures on border exemptions

It is always encouraging to see someone admit when they are wrong, it goes a long way toward cooling the fight people wish to have with you. Thank you SA Health.

I am an SA resident of 51 years. My daughter broke her neck in March at the start of her Yr 12 year, with a three month concussion symptoms battle. Our wonderful team of doctors were in Victoria, so I rented a cottage here in Victoria to support her rehab. I have not been able to get home since.

I have an SA-based agricultural business. I’m an only child to ageing parents, one of whom had a stroke in April, it has been a huge strain on them both.

My ET number never made it passed ‘submitted’ on SAH records. I applied in April and was denied a second, where it eventually stopped letting me log in. That was a service upgrade to their system apparently, they were very sorry no one informed me I was waiting for a permit that no longer existed.

Since September I have been in fortnightly contact and my application is again unfindable on the system. So I am waiting for 23rd November, when it is still unclear what the process is to cross.

I have paid exorbitant rent for eight months, I was lucky to get anywhere at all with the housing crisis here, I’ve had to halt development opportunities on my SA business and watched my parents age with stress over Zoom. My rental has expired and I am currently staying with friends until the 23rd November.

This is the bare bones of my story with SA Health. I’m glad you are sorry and big enough to know you’ve stuffed it up. Financially, my losses are huge. Pain and suffering have been huge. Apparently if my parents had actually died, I may have got a temporary pass.

Many of us have been imprisoned by the harsh penalties applied to breaching the requirements, threatened with huge fines and jail time.  You can now no longer even call SA Health re your permit progress, this fact being hidden in the Press 1 for this and 2 for the other… there is no option now for ET number info.

They just gave up and left thousands of us, returning SA residents, behind ‘enemy lines’ with no hope of communication or rescue. 2021 was a tough year for our very resilient family, made horrendous by the huge human rights infringements placed on us by SA Health. – Emma Koch

We applied on 10th July, 2021. On 13 September we received an email that told us to immediately reapply for an exemption or lose our place in the queue. So the one month mentioned in this article is total BS. – Ian Bancroft

Completely misleading statements from the SA Health boss to quote: “Anybody with compassionate grounds… they get  processed within 48 hours essentially”. Except they are turned down.

My fully vaxxed daughter, not living in a hotspot in Victoria, was “within 48 hours” denied an exemption to attend her grandfather’s funeral five days before the borders are opened anyway. The committee is asking the wrong questions. – Peter Macdonald

The response to people wanting to come home to SA was indeed far too slow, often causing a lot of pain and suffering to people who did not deserve to be treated so badly.

People who have simply been doing their job interstate, and wanting to see their young family or their elderly parents. The time it took SA Health and the Government to correct this was also far too long and shows a gross lack of compassion. Where was the understanding, the reasonable responses? For many they were non-existent for far too long. That is no way to treat people in this modern era. – Paul Martin