South Australians in Queensland have been urged to consider returning as soon as possible as the Sunshine State continues to battle a COVID-19 outbreak.
With southeast Queensland in lockdown, SA residents are still allowed to return provided they spend 14 days in home quarantine.
But Premier Steven Marshall says that may change in the coming days and local residents may face tougher restrictions, including the need to seek a special exemption to come home.
"People need to be thinking now about whether they should be staying in Queensland or coming back," the premier said on Monday.
As well as Queensland, SA also has hard borders in place with NSW and Victoria.
The NSW closure will not change during the current Sydney outbreak, but SA could move to ease the situation soon for people coming from regional Victoria and later Melbourne.
The state's transition committee on Monday resolved to ease some local coronavirus restrictions from Thursday, including a change in the general density rule to one person to every two square metres, essentially allowing most venues to move to 50 per cent capacity.
Sports competition can resume with limits on spectator numbers, but SA will keep mask-wearing in place for high-risk settings, high schools and most public places, including shopping centres.
Family gatherings will continue to be limited to 10 people and weddings at funerals will stay at 50 people.
The changes come after SA stared down its own cluster of COVID-19 infections, sparked two weeks ago after a man returned from Argentina and tested positive after quarantining in Sydney.
Mr Marshall said it was still possible for more cases to emerge but SA was in a much different position than it was when the outbreak was first sparked after the decision to "go hard and go early" with a week-long statewide lockdown.
"We are still concerned. Yes, it has been 14 days. But if we have missed any cases in South Australia we would be picking them up around about now," the premier said.
"So we really do need to be a little bit careful these next couple of days."
Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier said with NSW and Queensland battling outbreaks of the Delta variant of COVID-19, SA was still at risk.
"The Delta variant has changed the landscape. It has made it a lot more difficult," she said.
The new arrangements in SA are likely to stay in place for at least a week, though Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said they were also subject to continual assessment.
"If we do see significant factors that allow us to make changes, we certainly will," he said.
"But we'd be looking at a week before we take any further steps."
Mr Stevens also praised South Australians for masking up and continuing to take the risk of COVID-19 seriously.
"It shows a great sense of community, that everyone is doing the right thing," he said.
"It does give us the confidence to manage risk in a different way and maybe take a step further in relaxing restrictions.
"I'm grateful to see so many people readily accepting this imposition."
SA reported one new COVID-19 case on Monday, in a child who recently returned from overseas.
The girl is in hotel quarantine but considered to have an old infection.
The state has 28 active infections with 21 of those linked to the Modbury cluster.
Australian Associated Press
