He said he had several conversations with Spurrier about the need to impose the mandate, but could not recollect the dates of those conversations.
He said the only written advice he received was in an email he received the afternoon before imposing the mandate.
“I’m quite certain that I would have had conversations with Professor Spurrier about the third dose of the vaccine,” he said.
“There were frequent conversations with Professor Spurrier anxjmtzywd other members of SA Health regarding the Omicron variant and the impact it was having on our COVID response, including the efficacy of the vaccine being two doses compared to the requirement.”
It comes after chief public health officer Professor Nicola Spurrier was earlier this month forced to run a gauntlet of anti-vaccination protestors outside court after Varnhangen’s legal team subpoenaed her to appear before the trial.
Before his appearance this morning, Stevens told FiveAA the scenes that greeted Spurrier were “completely disgraceful”.
“Unfortunately, there are people out there who have divergent views,” he said.
“We certainly respect people’s right to hold different views, but there’s a way to behave and what we saw with the conduct of that crowd when Professor Spurrier was going to and from court was completely disgraceful.
