South Australia last Wednesday recorded 5496 cases of COVID-19 and has not reached that level since, but SA Health said it was unclear whether the state had already passed the peak.
“It is still a little early to tell if we have reached the peak of the Omicron wave, but watching the case numbers over the next few days may help in this regard,” SA Health said in a statement.
Modelling released yesterday forecasting the peak of South Australia’s BA.2 subvariant wave.
Modelling released on March 22 predicted South Australia could reach upwards of 8000 cases by early April, with the State Government continuing its effort to stand up 200 temporary hospital beds to prepare for the surge.
But SA Health said the new lower daily case estimate is a “good indication that South Australians are continuing to do the right thing such as staying home if unwell and keeping up with COVID-safe behaviours while out in the community”.
SA Health also speculated that the lower projected hospitalisation number could be due to the BA.2 sub-variant being less severe than BA.1, but said this wasn’t known yet.
Modelling released yesterday predicting a lower peak adult ward occupancy in South Australia.
“People are also keeping out of hospital by getting treated with oral antivirals and we are using alternatives to hospital care for many people now,” the statement said.
South Australia recorded 5068 new COVID-19 cases and four deaths on Tuesday – all women aged in their 60s, 70s and 80s.
There are currently 206 people in hospital including 11 in intensive care.
Indoor mask mandates are still on track to be removed by next Thursday, Premier Peter Malinauskas said yesterday, despite warnings from doctors that it’s too early to make such a promise.
Federal Greens pledge $6.1b EV plan to ‘restart’ SA car manufacturing
The Greens will push for a $6.1 billion South Australian-focused package to support an electric car industry in the state, if it secures the balance of power at May’s federal election.
Kicking off their campaign in Adelaide today, Greens leader Adam Bandt is pledging to boost the uptake of electric vehicles (EVs) and re-establish auto manufacturing in Australia.
“In a few years’ time, the whole country could be driving SA-made electric cars,” Bandt said in a statement.
“We’ll cut pollution, create jobs and be energy independent if we restart SA’s car industry and make it electric.
“The Liberals flattened SA’s car industry but the Greens want to recharge it.”
The Greens say the policy would be paid for by a new “billionaires tax”, a corporate super-profits tax, and no more handouts to “the coal, oil and gas giants that are driving the climate crisis”.
Aiming for net-zero emissions by 2035, the Greens would provide rebates of up to $15,000 for a driver’s first EV and finance up to $50,000 of the balance at cheap interest rates.
The Greens would also provide $2 billion over the next two years to FutureGrid, a proposed publicly owned electricity transmission and distribution company, to build new charging infrastructure.
More than 30,000 fast chargers would be installed at critical points across the country, to allow drivers to get to 80 per cent charge in 15-30 minutes.
The Greens are hoping to become “the biggest third party in the senate ever” with the successful election of their lead SA senate candidate Barbara Pocock.
Labor on track for Boothby win, Sturt in play: poll
The ALP’s prospects of winning the critical South Australian seats of Bxjmtzywoothby and Sturt at the upcoming federal election are strengthening, according to a new poll.
With the federal election set to be called within days, left-leaning thinktank the Australia Institute on Tuesday released new polling commissioned from UComms showing Labor holds a 57 per cent to 43 per cent two-party preferred lead in Boothby, South Australia’s most marginal seat.
The poll, which surveyed 801 Boothby residents through “self-completed automated voice polling methodologies”, has Labor candidate Louise Miller-Frost attracting 34.3 per cent of the first preference vote ahead of Liberal Rachel Swift at 31.8 per cent.
The Greens are polling at 11 per cent while high profile independent Jo Dyer is currently at 7.5 per cent.
Labor has not held Boothby since 1949, although the Liberals have no incumbency advantage at this election with sitting MP Nicolle Flint not running for re-election.
Meanwhile, another UComms poll of 809 residents in the blue-ribbon seat of Sturt shows incumbent Liberal MP James Stevens is down 48 per cent to 52 per cent to Labor on two-party preferred.
Labor candidate Sonja Baram is currently polling at 31 per cent of first preference votes compared to Stevens’ 33.2 per cent. The Greens are again polling at 11 per cent while a further 11 per cent remain undecided.
“If the Morrison Government had been hoping for a post-Budget poll bounce to help their chances in these key South Australian seats, they may be disappointed,” Australia Institute SA director Noah Schultz-Byard said.
“Normally South Australia is not considered a battleground state at Federal Elections, due to a lack of marginal lower house seats. However, our research shows that there could be at least two electorates in play this time around.
“The federal election is still more than a month away and, of course, a lot can change in that time. This research does tell us, though, that the Coalition has ground to make up in South Australia.”
Man dies after KI truck crash
A 27-year-old truck driver has died after a fatal crash near a boat ramp on Kangaroo Island yesterday.
Emergency services were called to Clark and Christmas Street near the Penneshaw boat ramp around 8am on Tuesday after the man’s truck left the road and crashed into an embankment before hitting rocks on the coast.
The truck’s trailer ended up in the water. Police say a 27-year-old man from Kangaroo Island, the truck’s sole occupant, died at the scene.
DEVELOPING: There is an unfolding emergency on Kangaroo Island where a truck has plunged onto rocks at Penneshaw and its trailer thrown into the ocean. The latest in 7NEWS Adelaide at 4pm and 6pm | https://t.co/8ftPfGh39Y #7NEWS pic.twitter.com/x0Kc2UWQhM
— 7NEWS Adelaide (@7NewsAdelaide) April 5, 2022
Police say investigations surrounding the circumstances of the crash continue.
The death brings South Australia’s road toll to 22 this year, compared to 33 at the same point in 2021.
The Department for Infrastructure and Transport has put out an alert to boat operators in the area to be wary of floating objects in the Pennashaw harbour after a number of 2m cubed crates from the truck entered the water.
WATCH: Adelaide’s rental crisis deepens
Adelaide’s rental market is still the hardest to access of any Australian capital city, according to new figures.
| Adelaide’s tight rental market 10 News First Adelaide – Disclaimer |  |
Zelenskyy calls for Nuremberg trials at UN security council
United Nations Security Council meeting on Ukraine to discuss war crimes at UN Headquarters in New York on April 5, 2022. Photo: Lev Radin/Sipa
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of gruesome atrocities in Ukraine and told the United Nations Security Council that those responsible should immediately be brought up on war crimes charges in front of a tribunal like the one established at Nuremberg after World War II.
Zelenskyy, appearing on Tuesday via video from Ukraine, said civilians had been tortured, shot in the back of the head, thrown down wells, blown up with grenades in their apartments and crushed to death by tanks while in cars.
“They cut off limbs, cut their throats. Women were raped and killed in front of their children,” he said, recounting what he described as the worst atrocities since World War II.
“Their tongues were pulled out only because their aggressor did not hear what they wanted to hear from them.”
Over the past few days, grisly images of what appeared to be civilian massacres carried out by Russian forces in Bucha before they withdrew from the outskirts of Kyiv have caused a global outcry and led Western nations to expel scores of Moscow’s diplomats and propose further sanctions, including a ban on coal imports from Russia.
Zelenskyy said both those who carried out the killings and those who gave the orders “must be brought to justice immediately for war crimes” in front of a tribunal similar to what was used in postwar Germany.
Moscow’s UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said while Bucha was under Russian control, “not a single local person has suffered from any violent action.”
Reiterating what the Kremlin has contended for days, he said that video footage of bodies in the streets was “a crude forgery” staged by the Ukrainians.
“You only saw what they showed you,” he said.
“The only ones who would fall for this are Western dilettantes.”
Associated Press journalists in Bucha have counted dozens of corpses in civilian clothes and interviewed Ukrainians who told of witnessing atrocities.
