Daily News Roundup

South Australia will come out of hard lockdown on Saturday night — three days early — and outdoor exercise with family or housemates will be allowed “effective immediately”, authorities have announced.

It comes as the state records three new coronavirus cases, all of which were already in quarantine and were close contacts of staff at a medi-hotel and the Brompton aged care home.

Premier Steven Marshall thanked South Australians for “their spirit” during the state’s tough lockdown, which only allowed people to leave their homes once a day to obtain essential goods.

But he said authorities decided to end the lockdown after discovering one of the positive cases at the centre of the Woodville Pizza Bar coronavirus hotspot had misled contact tracers.

The man, who worked at the Stamford medi-hotel, told authorities he contracted coronavirus after purchasing a pizza, but it has been revealed that he was actually working at the pizza shop — increasing his exposure to the virus.

“One of the close contacts linked to the Woodville Pizza Bar deliberately misled the contact tracing team,” Mr Marshall said.

“We know now that they lied. To say that I’m fuming is an understatement, we’re absolutely livid about the actions of this individual.

“I will not let the disgraceful conduct of a single individual keep SA in these circuit breaker conditions one day longer than what is necessary.

“However, this lie still means that our contact tracers need breathing space to contact people, but not for as long.”

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Joe Biden has won Georgia and its 16 electoral votes, an extraordinary victory for Democrats who pushed to expand their electoral map through the Sun Belt.

The win by Mr Biden pads his electoral college margin of victory over President Donald Trump.

Mr Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election on November 7 after flipping Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin to the Democrats’ column.

Mr Biden now has 306 electoral votes to Mr Trump’s 232.

Mr Trump won Georgia by 5 percentage points in 2016 over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

In 2020, Democrats had focused heavily on the state, seeing it in play two years after Democrat Stacey Abrams narrowly lost the governor’s race.

The ABC has been guided by the projections of syndicated news agency Associated Press for calling states. Until now, AP has not called Georgia as it is the agency’s practice not to call a race that is or is likely to become subject to a recount.

The AP called the race for Mr Biden on Thursday after state election officials there said hand-tallied audit of ballots cast in the presidential race confirmed the former vice president led Mr Trump by roughly 12,000 votes out of nearly 5 million counted.

Gabriel Sterling, who oversaw the implementation of the state’s new voting system, said the result of the hand audit found Mr Biden leading Trump by a little more than 12,000 votes. Going into the hand tally, Mr Biden led Mr Trump by a margin of about 14,000 votes.

Previously uncounted ballots discovered in several counties during the hand count reduced that margin, while other counties found slight differences in results as they did their hand counts. State election officials had consistently said that was to be expected, and stressed the audit was not a response to any supposedly suspected problems with the state’s results or an official recount request.

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Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh will celebrate their 73rd wedding anniversary today, an occasion they will be unable to share with their family as England is currently under a coronavirus lockdown.

Queen Elizabeth, 94, and Prince Philip, 99, married in London’s Westminster Abbey on November 20, 1947, just two years after the end of World War II.

To mark their anniversary, Buckingham Palace released a photograph of a smiling monarch and her husband looking at a card made by her great-grandchildren Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, alongside other cards and letters from well-wishers.

The picture was taken at Windsor Castle, the queen’s home west of London where the couple are staying during the lockdown.

In a nod to their early days of marriage, Queen Elizabeth was wearing a chrysanthemum brooch, made of sapphires and diamonds, that she wore for pictures taken at Broadlands in southern England during the first part of their honeymoon.

The couple first met when they attended the wedding of Prince Philip’s cousin, Princess Marina of Greece, to Elizabeth’s uncle, the Duke of Kent, in 1934.

Prince Philip gained the attention of his future wife when the then-13-year-old princess made a visit with her parents to Britain’s Royal Naval College at Dartmouth in southwest England where he was a cadet.

ENDS