Covid ‘cover-up’ denied by Adelaide government

The South Australian Government has rejected accusations it covered up an old COVID-19 case among tennis arrivals in Adelaide last month.

The State Opposition has accused the government of being aware a member of the tennis group had earlier tested positive but they decided not to make the information public.

The group of players and support staff touched down in Adelaide on January 14 and began 2 weeks of mandatory quarantine.

Labor health spokesman Chris Picton said the case only became public because of comments made to French media by Benoit Paire, after his first-round loss at the Australian Open, and accused the Government of a “cover-up”.

Mr Picton said despite the fact that the individual — a support member — had been cleared, it was an “absolute double standard”.

“There have been numerous examples where the Government have held press conferences to tell us about cases that they have known have been old infections,” he said.

“There was a different standard applied to this case than to previous cases.

“In this case, there was no notification to the public. In fact, it was only via an international tennis player complaining about it yesterday that we were able to know what’s happened in this case.”

Health Minister Stephen Wade has rejected the claims, denying it was a “case of secrecy and cover-up”.

“It wasn’t a positive case on the plane in the sense of being an infectious case, it was an old case,” he said.

“In any case which is identified as an old case and it’s been previously counted and it’s not infectious, it’s not counted and it’s not reported.”