Civics: Shaun visited a plant nursery last week, now he’s quarantined in an Adelaide medi-hotel

Rebecca Opie and Imogen Hayne:

That night he received the text message that no one wants to receive. 

“At about 11.30 that night I got a text message from SA Health saying that I’d been to a potential exposure site for the Omicron strain,” Mr Ferguson said. 

As per the instructions, Mr Ferguson immediately got tested but what followed from then was a whirlwind of uncertainty. 

An SA Health employee called him the next day and told him he could isolate at home with his husband and, that if he tested negative, he could be released out of isolation after seven days as he had been fully vaccinated. 

“After five minutes [the employee] came back and said, ‘I’m really sorry. I’ve given you some false information, because it’s the Omicron variant they are not necessarily happy for you to be isolating at home with your husband and they are going to consider putting you in a medi-hotel’,” Mr Ferguson said. 

He was then told to wait for another phone call from SA Health.