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Mount Gambier hit with seven days of restrictions following COVID-19 case

Residents in three South Australian Local Government Areas have been plunged into seven days of additional COVID-19 restrictions following the discovery of a new COVID-19 cases.

Effective immediately, residents of Mount Gambier City, the District Council of Grant and Wattle Range Council area will be under level three restrictions.

As part of these, all venues in these areas are now restricted to one person per four square metres of space.

BREAKING: Gunnedah entering seven-day lockdown at midnight

All consumption of food and beverages in these areas must be done while seated.

Home gatherings will be capped to just two people per day, while private activities are now capped at 10 people.

Singing and dancing is not permitted unless it is members of a bridal party at wedding ceremony or reception or at a dance studio if no service of alcohol takes place.

READ MORE: Six oil tanker crew members hospitalised with COVID-19 in WA

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Masks must be worn in all indoor public places including gyms, personal care services such as hairdressers and public transport.

The new restrictions come after a woman tested positive to COVID-19 in Mount Gambier on Friday.

The mother-of-four had tested positive to the virus after visiting family in Casterton, which is part of South Australia's border bubble with Victoria.

READ MORE: COVID-19 virus evolving to 'get better' at moving through air

Casterton has never recorded a case of COVID-19.

South Australian health authorities have confirmed they are continuing to investigate the woman's travels to identify close contacts.

So far all close contacts with the woman have tested negative, including her children.

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Six oil tanker crew members hospitalised with COVID-19 in WA

Six crew members from an oil tanker that recently docked in Western Australia have been hospitalised with COVID-19, while another six staff have tested positive to the virus.

WA Health Minister Roger Cook said on Monday that the WA Department of Health had tested all 22 crew members from the Stolt Sakura tanker for COVID-19, with 12 having returned positive results.

He said six patients had been taken to Fiona Stanley Hospital, including two patients who were in intensive care in a serious but stable condition.

READ MORE: Australian diplomat sparks WA COVID-19 fears after positive test

Crew on board the Stolt Sakura, docked at Fremantle, have tested positive to COVID-19.

He said all other crew members would remain within isolation on board the vessel, which docked in Fremantle.

Mr Cook said health authorities had identified 10 close contacts of an Australian diplomat who had tested positive to the virus after arriving in WA from Serbia via Dubai with his family on September 29.

He said nine of the contacts had returned negative results, while one had tested positive to the virus and was in hotel quarantine.

WA Health Minister Roger Cook.

Mr Cook said the cases had posed "an extremely low public health risk".

The health minister said authorities had also been in contact with people who had flown in from SA after Adelaide Airport was declared a COVID-19 exposure site on the weekend.

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COVID-19 virus evolving to 'get better' at moving through air

New mutations of COVID-19, such as the Delta strain, are "getting better" at transmitting through the air, a study has found.

People infected with a later variant of COVID-19 put 43 to 100 times more virus into the air when breathing than those who were infected with the original strains of the virus, according to the University of Maryland's School of Public Health.

The researchers also found that loose-fitting cloth and surgical masks reduced the amount of virus that gets into the air around infected people by about half.

A study conducted by researchers at the University of Maryland found that variants of SARS-CoV-2, which causes the coronavirus disease, are evolving to "get better" at transmission through air.

READ MORE: Vaccinated Aussies given the chance to win $1m

"Our research indicates that the variants just keep getting better at travelling through the air," Professor Don Milton said, "so we must provide better ventilation and wear tight-fitting masks, in addition to vaccination, to help stop spread of the virus."

The just-released study examined the Alpha strain, which has since been displaced by the more dominant and even more highly transmissible Delta variant.

The amount of virus in the air coming from Alpha variant infections was 18-times more than could be explained by the increased amounts of virus in nasal swabs and saliva, the study found, highlighting the dangers of tiny aerosols carrying the infection.

"We know that the Delta variant circulating now is even more contagious than the Alpha variant," Dr Milton cautioned.

To test whether face masks work in blocking the virus, the study measured how much SARS-CoV-2 was breathed into the air and tested how much less virus people sick with COVID-19 exhaled into the air after putting on a cloth or surgical mask.

Face coverings significantly reduced virus-laden particles in the air around the infected person, cutting the amount by about 50 per cent, researchers found.

Unfortunately, according to the study, the loose-fitting cloth and surgical masks didn't stop infectious virus from getting into the air.

READ MORE Melbourne is now the most locked-down city in the world

"The take-home messages from this paper are that the coronavirus can be in your exhaled breath, is getting better at being in your exhaled breath," Dr Jennifer German, a co-author of the study, said.

"Using a mask reduces the chance of you breathing it on others."

READ MORE: 33,000 Aussies may suffer long COVID, study finds