South Australia is declared a coronavirus hotspot as states SHUT their borders and quarantine travellers after worrying new outbreak
The Northern Territory and Tasmania have declared South Australia a coronavirus hotspot after a cluster of COVID-19 cases in Adelaide grew to 17, with other states expected to follow suit.
Northern Territory Chief Minister Michael Gunner says anyone travelling to the Territory from SA will now be forced into supervised quarantine for 14 days.
He says anyone arriving on Monday would be given the option to return to SA.
'The security and committee has just met to review the alarming developments in South Australia overnight,' Mr Gunner said.
'All of the information that we are getting right now concerns us and there is still so much we don't know about this outbreak.
Passengers who flew from Adelaide to Perth on Sunday were told to quarantine or go home. News of Adelaide's outbreak came as their plane was in mid-air. Pictured: a Qantas flight to Adelaide last month
Travellers pictured at Adelaide airport on Saturday. South Australians' travel plans have been thrown into chaos by an outbreak that prompted WA to change its border rules on Sunday
Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein said he may raise South Australia's coronavirus threat designation to 'medium'
'That is the critical point here. It is what we don't know that worries us the most.'
Tasmania has also imposed mandatory quarantine for travellers arriving from South Australia.
Anyone who entered the island state from South Australia since November 9 is also being forced into isolation immediately.
Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein said the state's government may raise South Australia coronavirus threat designation to 'medium' - the same level as Victoria.
The border closures come after West Australian Premier Mark McGowan imposed a mandatory 14-day quarantine on travellers entering his state from SA on Sunday.
Some travellers were told they would have to self-isolate when they arrived in Perth.
Queensland is expected to impose similar travel restrictions with Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk taking to Twitter late Monday morning.
'Anyone about to leave Adelaide should be advised we are assessing the COVID-19 outbreak and may place restrictions on travel, including mandatory quarantine on arrivals,' she wrote.
'More details will be announced shortly.'
By midday on Monday Victoria also declared Adelaide a COVID-19 hotspot, following the outbreak.
Queensland is expected to impose similar travel restrictions with Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk taking to Twitter late Monday morning
Hundreds of people have lined up to get a coronavirus test at a pop-up clinic in Parafield, northern Adelaide on Monday morning as a family cluster in the suburb continues to grow
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said anyone arriving from South Australia at Melbourne airport will be interviewed, and may be required to undergo a rapid test.
Meanwhile, New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced the border with SA will remain open.
Ms Berejiklian said NSW authorities will be watching the situation in SA closely.
'The situation in South Australia is very concerning,' she said on Monday.
Adelaide's family cluster exploded to 17 cases on Monday and is threatening to explode out of control.
The SA cluster was sparked by a worker at a quarantine hotel becoming infected and spreading it to other family members.
Of the 17 cases, 15 are directly related to the family cluster while the other two are linked infections.
Health officials are scrambling to trace contacts of the confirmed cases, which likely numbers in the hundreds, amid fears of a Melbourne-style lockdown.
Cleaners can been seen at the The Denison Centre, part of the Mawson Lakes School on Monday
SA chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier said the cluster of cases in Parafield in Adelaide's north was growing at an alarming rate.
Hundreds of people were pictured lining up to get a coronavirus test at a pop-up clinic in the suburb on Monday morning.
Professor Nicola Spurrier, South Australia's Chief Public Health Officer, pictured in May
The list of potentially infected places over the weekend now include a prison, a hospital, a primary school, and aged care facility and a shopping centre, with more than 90 people already forced into quarantine.
Thomas More College in northern Adelaide and Hungry Jack's in Port Adelaide - where one of the confirmed cases works - both announced they were temporarily shutting their doors on Monday morning to slow the spread of the virus.
The outbreak - involving the first community transmission in the state since April 15 -has prompted Western Australia to force all arrivals from SA since Saturday to self-quarantine for 14 days.
South Australian travellers arriving in Tasmania and the Northern Territory will also now be required to quarantine for 14 days, the two states announced later on Monday morning.
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt is confident South Australian authorities will bring the outbreak under control.
He has offered to send Australian Defence Force troops and a national incident centre is being set up.
'If more is required, more will be provided,' Mr Hunt told the ABC on Monday.
The Lyell McEwin Hospital in Adelaide's north where a woman in her 80s was diagnosed. More than 90 staff and patients who were there at the same time in Emergency are in quarantine
'But these are the sorts of challenges that if we trade or engage with the world, if we bring Australians home, we will face, in a world where there's over half a million cases a day.
'Having these strong testing, tracing and isolation systems are absolutely critical, and South Australia - on all the evidence - does have exactly that.'
The cluster has already caused major disruptions, with Western Australia making a snap decision to reimpose border restrictions.
Mr Hunt said there was no medical basis for any state or territory to remain closed.
He said coronavirus cases were bound to flare up across the country at different times but there were strong systems in place to deal with any outbreak.
Victoria has now gone 17 days without any coronavirus cases or deaths.
But Mr Hunt, who hails from Victoria, is reluctant to give the state government credit for keeping the state in lockdown while bringing a second wave under control.
Medical staff at an Adelaide coronavirus testing clinic in September. Adelaide's spiralling outbreak is worrying health authorities
'We always supported, reluctantly and regretfully, going into lockdown once the contact tracing system wasn't able to cope in Victoria,' he said.
'There were some differences about the speed at the end, particularly once they were well below their case level that NSW was able to manage.
'We felt that perhaps we had more confidence in their system than they did on the way out.'
He and Prime Minister Scott Morrison are visiting Victoria to announce a new, hi-tech vaccine manufacturing facility will be developed in Melbourne.
The federal government has struck a $1 billion deal with Seqirus, a subsidiary of CSL, to rapidly manufacture vaccines in response to future health pandemics.
The pair will also meet Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and are likely to discuss reopening the Melbourne Airport to returning travellers from overseas.
ADELAIDE'S COVID-19 OUTBREAK - WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR
A worker at the Peppers Hotel in the Adelaide CBD is believed to have caught the virus from an international traveller and then infected her large family.
The couple - a woman in her 50s and a man in his 60s then gave it to an 80-year-old woman, who is one of their mothers.
Elderly woman visited the Parafield Plaza Asian supermarket between 10:30am and 11:30am on Thursday without knowing she was infectious.
Growth in the Parafield outbreak led to the family cluster in South Australia rising to 17 cases on Monday.
SA Health authorities believe the outbreak started when a worker at Peppers Hotel's quarantine facility in Adelaide's CBD brought the virus home. The CBD hotel is pictured
Western Australia has since forced all arrivals from SA since Saturday to self-quarantine for 14 days.
More than 90 people already forced into quarantine as dozens of locations put on high alert:
Anyone who was in the emergency department at Lyell McEwin Hospital between 5pm Friday 13 November and 4am on Saturday 14 November told to self-isolate immediately.
Prisoners are being tested at Yatala Labour Prison after an employee who was a close contact of the family contact contracted COVID-19.
Anyone who visited Parafield Plaza Supermarket between 10.30am and 11.30am on Thursday November 12 told to watch for symptoms.
Mawson Lakes Primary School has been closed for 24 hours after a close contact of a student tested positive to the virus.
Thomas More College in north Adelaide has closed for at least 24 hours after a student at the school tested positive - and Hungry Jack's in Port Adelaide has also been closed for a deep clean.