An 81-year-old woman who died in Sydney on Thursday night has been confirmed as Australia’s seventh coronavirus fatality.
NSW Health authorities said the woman had had close contact with a confirmed coronavirus case linked to Ryde Hospital.
Her death brings the NSW toll to six. The other is a man who died in Western Australia early in March, who was Australia’s first COVID-19 death.
Meanwhile, an Australian tourist in his 30s who died in hospital in Iceland had also tested positive to the coronavirus.
The man, whose name has not been released, reportedly died shortly after arriving at a hospital in northern Iceland. Despite his positive test, COVID-19 is not thought to have been his cause of death.
Iceland’s chief epidemiologist Porolfur Guonason confirmed the tourist showed no symptoms of COVID-19.
The man’s wife, who was travelling with him, has also tested positive for coronavirus and is in isolation.
Also on Friday, NSW Health said the state’s confirmed cases had jumped to 353, up 46 on Thursday. Six people are in intensive care.
A school on the NSW mid-north coast was closed on Friday after a member of its community tested positive for the virus.
St Columba Anglican School in Port Macquarie received the news on Thursday afternoon and was closed on Friday.
Despite that, NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant said she was reassured that many of the state’s coronavirus cases remain mild.
Dr Chant said the initial precautionary approach of hospitalising all confirmed COVID-19 cases had been abandoned as cases increased.
“Many of our patients are being managed in the community and being managed at home and we are only admitting patients now that require hospital care,” she said.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian again implored people to adhere to social distancing measures to limit the speed of the virus’ spread.
More than 40,000 people in NSW have been tested for COVID-19.
“If we control the spread and keep the numbers very low as to who is actually needing to go into intensive care – and at the moment it’s only a handful of people who are in hospital because of this illness – that’s where we want to keep it,” Ms Berejiklian told the Nine Network on Friday.
“We are not on top of it and nobody is, but we are still at a stage where we’re managing it and we don’t want to lose control and that’s why it’s important to socially distance.”
NSW Planning Minister Rob Stokes has also overridden regulations preventing 24-hour deliveries of stock to supermarkets amid panic-buying.
On Friday, Coles chief operations officer Matthew Swindells said the supermarket chain had sold three Christmases worth of stock in the past three weeks alone.
-with agencies
