Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly says Australia has problems sourcing "consumables" for testing kits, and will continue limiting testing to overseas cases or contracts.
Dr Kelly would not say how many tests were available in Australia, but he said the issue was not with the kits themselves, but with the consumables used in the kits. He cited a case where a fever clinic tested almost 1600 people with just one positive, and said the decision had been made to focus testing on where "you get best bang for your buck".
"We have to look at very carefully and how we're doing the testing where we're doing the testing. And yes, that has put some strain on some of these consumables in the laboratory. I won't go into details, but there are many things tin a laboratory that are needed other than tests," he said.
"... This is not surprising, but we're looking at ways that we can deal with that."
Nor would Dr Kelly provide details on whether Australia had sufficient ventilators, with supply proving a problem overseas. He said health authorities were looking to "dampen demand" for ventilators and to source them across Australia and New Zealand. He emphasised that 80 per cent of people who contracted coronavirus would not need to go to hospital, let along end up in intensive care, let alone even then requiring a ventilator.
With reports emerging on Monday that two people who shared a flight to Los Angeles with Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton to had tested positive to coronavirus, Dr Kelly said he was confident Mr Dutton was not infectious on the flight but he might have contracted the virus on the flight.
"Whether he caught it on the plane or before that it's hard to know, we know that the incubation period for this particular virus is quite long. It can be up to 14 days, but mostly five to six days. He'd been back in Australia for six days by the time he became sick. So he was not infectious on that plane."
The nation's chief medical and health officers meet today, Monday, to draw up more advice, including measures to govern gatherings in enclosed spaces, such as pubs. The advice will go to the national cabinet on Tuesday.
More to come
- For information on COVID-19, please go to the ACT Health website or the federal Health Department's website.
- You can also call the Coronavirus Health Information Line on 1800 020 080
- If you have serious symptoms, such as difficulty breathing, call Triple Zero (000)
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