Lockdowns, medi-hotels, mask mandates and business restrictions: Grant Stevens has spent most days in the past two years grappling with decisions he never thought he would have to make.
As state coordinator under South Australia's Emergency Management Act, the Police Commissioner is handed extraordinary powers to direct the lives of people in emergencies like bushfires, floods, earthquakes and, it turns out, pandemics.
For 793 days he wielded those powers as South Australia grappled with the COVID-19 crisis.
But yesterday, his powers were rescinded in favour of new laws, which hand much of the COVID-19 decision-making back to the government of the day.
Mr Stevens said the job as state coordinator was tough, but that he felt "privileged" to have played it.
"That's the reality of what we were doing."
While certain his decisions will be subject to a longer-term review, the Police Commissioner has no regrets about the decisions he made.
Mr Stevens said while he had not always abided by the advice of the state's Chief Public Health Officer, Nicola Spurrier, the state had been well served by it.
"We put our faith in the advice from Nicola Spurrier and that served us really well," he told reporters.
"I think there are lots of examples where different states did different things and I'm not sure they fared as well as we did because of those decisions."
Difficult decision on Black Lives Matter protests
One decision where South Australia took a different path than other states was around the Black Lives Matter protests and marches in June 2020, in the wake of the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in the United States.
"Some people were critical of the decision I took to allow the protest to occur when the rest of South Australians were required to stay apart," Mr Stevens told ABC Radio Adelaide.
"We couldn't have hospitality operating, gatherings were prohibited.
"But we made the call to allow that protest to occur and it turned out to be, in my view, the right decision because we saw a safe and respectful protest where in other places, we saw violence and confrontation between protesters and police, protesters protesting against police violence.
"I think it was the worst outcome would have been for violent activity in South Australia where police officers had to tackle protesters, and it would have been terrible for South Australia. And I'm glad it didn't happen."
Focus now on recruiting more police officers
With his role managing the pandemic now significantly diminished, Mr Stevens said he was looking forward to returning his focus to making changes in the South Australian police force, which was struggling to find new recruits.
"We're still struggling in SAPOL because we still have over 100 people a day absent with COVID, and we are challenging to get people to apply for police positions and join the academy," he said.
Mr Stevens said there was no one cause for the failure to recruit but speculated that officers acting as security guards and performing border checks during the pandemic may have been a turn-off.
"It's not a unique problem for South Australia. I speak to my counterparts across Australia and they're all struggling with recruiting at the moment," he said.
SA Health today reported 3,975 new COVID-19 cases, along with one death, of a man in his 70s.
