At the Majura Park Costco on Monday afternoon there were a steady flow of customers who had completed the typical Costco haul with many trolleys filled with bulk toilet paper.
But among those, a few had stocked up on supplies, just in case.
It comes as NSW Health authorities are trying to track down patients and contacts of a Sydney medical worker who tested positive for coronavirus on Monday, to work out how he got it and who he might have infected.
The 53-year-old is in intensive care in a stable condition. He was one of three cases diagnosed in NSW on Monday. A man who returned from Iran on Saturday was confirmed with the disease, and his sister also infected. The sister and the healthcare worker are the first known person-to-person cases in Australia.
In Canberra, Jim Zhang had a trolley packed with non-perishables, bulk disinfectant spray and water.
Mr Zhang said it was larger than his typical grocery shop but since the COVID-19 outbreak he wanted to ensure had he two weeks worth of supply.
"We are so far away from Europe and Asia where the outbreak is, but this is just in case," he said.
Despite the haul, Mr Zhang said he was not yet alarmed, rather the shop was to get ahead.
"We still don't have to be panicking yet but just prepared," he said.
"I mean like we are still doing quite good ... but you never know."
This was echoed by Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith who said the territory was hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst. According to ACT Health, 117 people have been tested so far for the disease in the ACT, with all returning a negative result.
"I think it's always important for people to think about what might come down the track," she said.
"I also think it's important people take a measured approach to this.
"We really don't want people to be panicked or anxious about covid-19, the ACT is well prepared."
Ms Stephen-Smith said if cases were detected in the ACT, the territory would look into creating a respiratory assessment clinic to allow people to be tested quickly.
The extent to which patients were isolated and treated in hospitals would depend on what cases continued to enter Australia, she said.
ACT Chief Health Officer Kerryn Coleman said the public had to expect Australia would get more cases, and that the ACT would be exposed.
Dr Coleman said ACT hospitals had a good level of surge capacity, should the ACT be exposed to an outbreak. She said health authorities were creating procedures to follow if there were cases in the territory.
This includes considering creating specific wards where all coronavirus patients are placed, reducing the risk of transmission to other patients.
If the ACT received an influx of patients, elective surgeries could be reduced and other resources at both Canberra and Calvary Public Hospitals could be redirected, Dr Coleman said.
"Canberra hospitals are very well set up to isolate people who they think have an infectious disease," Dr Coleman said.
"We would take their specialist advice and they would have those procedures in place at every hospital.
"There are quite a few [negative pressure rooms] in Canberra Hospital that are being used at the moment and are being looked at being brought on line."
Ms Stephen-Smith said the ACT agreed with the federal government's decision to impose travel bans to Iran and China, and not South Korea or Italy.
She said federal health authorities were assessing the travel situation on a day-by-day basis.
Canberra Hospital struggled under the pressure of a severe flu season last year. But Ms Stephen-Smith said the ACT had the capacity to deal with a coronavirus outbreak.
"Even through we have no confirmed cases of covid-19 in the ACT ... we know if it does become a global pandemic, that impact could be quite significant during the winter months when we're already dealing with a cold and flu season."
Ms Stephen-Smith said the ACT government would look to other jurisdictions when deciding whether to extend the availability of the flu vaccine, as NSW has done.
She encouraged older people to get a flu vaccine when it became available, noting the combined danger of the flu and coronavirus spreading in the community at the same time.
