Health officials in New South Wales will contact passengers from two international flights after a passenger who returned from Japan and another who returned from South Korea were diagnosed with coronavirus on Tuesday.
The two passengers, who arrived in Sydney, take the number of cases in Australia to 35.
“We are seeing quite an escalation of diagnoses of the virus,” said the NSW health minister, Brad Hazzard. Once the flight details of the two affected people had been confirmed, he said they would be made public to ensure everyone on those flights could be notified.
Hazzard also provided further details about Australia’s only case of community transmission, a doctor who was diagnosed with the virus on Monday. Hazzard said the 53-year-old worked at Ryde hospital, and that any staff he had been found to be in close contact with had been sent home to isolate themselves. Meanwhile, authorities had made good progress in contacting any patients who had come into close contact with the doctor. It was still unclear how the doctor had been infected.
Until that case, all cases in Australia could be traced back to infection following overseas travel, or via direct contact with an infected returned traveller. There has also been one case of local transmission, a 41-year-old NSW woman who on Monday was announced to have caught the disease from her 43-year-old brother, who had returned from Iran.
“Reflecting what is happening worldwide, an increasing number of people are being diagnosed with the coronavirus, and what we are now seeing in Sydney is reflective of that situation,” Hazzard said.
Earlier on Monday the prime minister called for Australians to use “common sense”, with escalation of the virus around the world prompting panic buying. Consumers reported supermarket shelves stripped of items like paper towels and toilet paper, along with non-perishable food items. But health experts and Scott Morrison said extensive stockpiling was not necessary. By Tuesday evening,#toiletpaper was trending on Twitter as Australians shared photos of empty shelves.
Both Coles and Woolworths reassured customers that they had increased deliveries and expected to replenish stock. Toilet paper producer Kimberly-Clark said it had opened up its manufacturing line in South Australia to help replenish stock.
“The common-sense response is to go about your business as normal. That is exactly what you heard from the chief medical officer,” Morrison said. “I can understand the anxiety out there in the community. That is why it is important to get information from the trusted official sources, rather than wildly speculative reports out there.”
He urged people to regularly visit the federal department of health website, to contact the coronavirus health information hotline, and to listen to the commonwealth chief medical officer, Prof Brendan Murphy.
Murphy said people in the community did not need to change their activities. Only high-risk people – that is, people who had returned from mainland China and Iran, those with the virus, and those who had been in close contact with infected people – needed to self-isolate and report symptoms to their doctors. The rest of the community did not need to avoid shaking hands or crowds, he said.
“So if you have come from an area where you might be at risk or you have been in contact with someone, isolate yourself, ring up your GP or your local hospital, tell them about your travel history and get advice about being tested,” Murphy said. “We do have a very advanced pandemic plan, we are working across every part of the health system to make sure that we are prepared for any eventuality. But at this stage, we have small numbers of cases that are controlled and the community can be reassured that there is no reason to change normal behaviours, no reason to go and panic buy and do things that are unnecessary.”
Morrison praised Australians for heeding advice to self-isolate if they had travelled to affected countries and identify themselves if they became sick, saying “we will continue to put in place the sensible measures”. However, the attorney general, Christian Porter, said it was “not inconceivable” that control orders might be used under the Biosecurity Act to detain people or force them into treatment to halt the virus spread. A “human biosecurity control order” requires people to comply with certain orders including staying at home, handing over contact details and providing body samples for diagnosis.
On Friday, health ministers will meet with aged care home providers to discuss advice and ensure the sector is prepared. Meanwhile, doctors will be briefed in coming days on how to respond to any sustained community transmission, including through establishing dedicated coronavirus clinics where patients could be triaged. The NSW chief medical officer, Dr Kerry Chant, said hospitals were planning to increase the number of beds and staff in intensive care units to accommodate severe cases.
“We will increase ICU capacity and work is being undertaken with our districts to do that,” she said. “We can redeploy staff. I’m not saying it’s not a challenge but we’ve done a lot of extensive planning.”
State and territory education departments, too, have been issuing notices to school principals. Public schools in NSW have been told to stop overseas excursions, while in Western Australia, education officials have told students to stay home if they have been in close contact with a confirmed case of coronavirus “irrespective of whether they have developed symptoms”.
“Principals are encouraged to consider the needs of students in self-imposed isolation,” the WA directive states. “The health-related needs of these students is primary, however, it is important to also consider the social-emotional needs of such students.
“Maintaining contact with students via phone and/or the internet while they are in isolation will allow students to know the school cares about them and their well-being.”
Because of the risk to the economy from the virus, the Reserve Bank of Australia cut interest rates to a record low of just 0.5%. The prime minister has called on the banks to pass on any rate cut in full.
