Councils urge Easter travellers to stay away from country SA

Last weekend, Premier Steven Marshall released a letter, which was co-signed by the mayors of the 17 local councils, urging people not to head out into regional SA to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

At present, the majority of the state's coronavirus cases are in Adelaide, other than the cluster in the Barossa Valley.

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Several of the mayors say if the 'stay at home' advice is ignored this long weekend, they will seek stronger measures such as WA which does not allow travel between different regions without an exemption.

SA Local Government Association president Sam Telfer says the regions have limited health services to deal with COVID-19 and a high proportion of older, "more susceptible" people which need protecting.

"We are in a unique situation in that we are usually encouraging people to get out into our regions, but we need people to stay home, especially over Easter and these school holidays," he said.

"We are asking people to obey the government directions until the health crisis is over and after that, I promise everyone will be welcomed back into the regions with open arms.

"We can't afford to become complacent, even if we are seeing some positive numbers."

Yorke Peninsula mayor Darren Braund says during peak holiday periods of Easter and Christmas, it is not uncommon for their region to swell in population by four times, with about half of their houses owned by holiday makers.

"Our council residents are the second oldest in SA, after Victor Harbor, so we have a very high amount of vulnerable people and very limited health services," he said.

"So if the virus gets into some of these towns, it could have a devastating effect.

"Hopefully the majority of people will understand a bit of short-term pain to protect the well-being of our community."

Mr Braund said Easter would be a telling time, but if people continued to travel he would welcome "stronger measures" to stop them.

Robe is normally a hive of activity over Easter, but this year the caravan parks will be empty, most businesses in the main street will be shut and the boat ramps closed.

Last month, the District Council of Robe was the first in the state to discourage tourists visiting during the pandemic to protect its permanent residents- one third of which are more than 60 years of age according to the latest census.

Mayor Alison Nunan hopes the message from all three tiers of government for people to stay home and avoid unessential travel this Easter gets through loud and clear.

She says the town is "very vulnerable" with no hospital and just one doctor and one pharmacist to deal with any COVID-19 cases, be they a local or tourist.

"Following discussions with our local doctor, it was clear that we had to take early action to protect the health of both our tourists and residents," she said.

"Our usual influx for the Vic and SA school holidays, as well as Easter, is in the order of 10,000 people.

"You could reasonably expect that someone would have COVID-19 in a group that size, whether they are displaying symptoms or not.

"It may have meant that our tourists went back to their own communities and inadvertently spread the virus, as well as our own community having cases.

"There would have been no winners in that scenario so we acted to prevent that occurring."

Mrs Nunan says the council put the health of its residents first when it made the decision to discourage tourists, but acknowledges a lot of tourism-dependent businesses will "really, really struggle" for a long time, even with government assistance.

But she knows the town will welcome tourists with open arms after the crisis is over and the newly-appointed Tourism and Events manager- whose job it will be to promote the town- will start at the end of the month to kick-start the economy when the restrictions are over.

"Being the first cab off the rank last month, we did receive some criticism for coming out and asking tourists to stay away, but I would make the same decision again," she said.

"The idea is to get through this as a strong community and without any of our residents getting this virus or needing to leave for medical treatment. It seems to be working so far."