The NSW Australian Medical Association (AMA) says trying to clarify coronavirus guidelines is becoming "confusing, frustrating and challenging" for medical staff.
Vice president of NSW AMA Dr Danielle McMullen said medical professionals were not receiving the correct information about how to test potential COVID-19 cases.
"In NSW it's becoming increasingly challenging and frustrating to know what to do on the ground," she said.
"We've seen conflicting media reports over the past few days about who to test, when to test them, how to test them and where to test them."
There are now 65 confirmed cases of coronavirus in NSW and two residents of a Sydney aged care facility have died from the virus.
Dr McMullen said information coming from the Federal Government and different state health authorities was "confusing, frustrating and challenging".
"We really need a path forward to really let doctors and the general public know who's at risk and when and why they should be tested or should self-isolate."
Yesterday, the country's chief medical officer Brendan Murphy addressed some of the confusion around testing.
"At the moment we are not recommending people with acute, cold, flu-like symptoms, unless they are a returned traveller, or unless they are a contact of a confirmed case, be tested," he said.
A virus infodemic
Sydney doctor Jiang Li, whose patients are mostly from a Chinese background, said up to 80 per cent of his patients were worried about coronavirus despite only a third having symptoms.
Dr Li said people were panic buying medicine and were arriving at his Town Hall clinic wanting six months of prescriptions.
He said many of his patients were presenting with regular flu symptoms or didn't have any symptoms at all, but both were convinced they had COVID-19.
None of his patients have tested positive for the virus.
"I think people need to calm down first," he said.
"The misinformation is worse than the virus at the moment.
"You cannot send everyone with a flu to the emergency department because they will send them back to you anyway, but then you don't want to miss them."
A Sydney doctor who spent two weeks in self-isolation after coming in contact with a confirmed case at Ryde Hospital, called for people in NSW's major population to be quarantined for two weeks.
But NSW AMA's Dr McMullen rejected the idea.
"Self-isolating the entire community is impractical and will just kick the can further down the road because at the end of the 14 days then what?" she said.
"I don't think quarantining the whole state is going to make a difference or [would] work.
"But we really do need to work out when and how to reduce the spread of this virus."
