Police Commissioner Mick Fuller to head up NSW fight to stop coronavirus
As NSW residents fail to get the message about social distancing and 17,000 Australians are due to fly into Sydney in coming days, the Premier has turned to Police Commissioner Mick Fuller to lead the fight against the spread of the deadly coronavirus.
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Police Commissioner Mick Fuller will take charge of NSW’s response to COVID-19 and attempt to stem the increasingly uncontrollable spread throughout NSW.
He will remain police commissioner as well while he takes charge of the pandemic response.
Mr Fuller will co-ordinate police, Australian Border Force and Defence personnel to stop the ongoing community transmission and manage the thousands of people in quarantine.
The Sunday Telegraph understands Premier Gladys Berejiklian asked Mr Fuller only yesterday afternoon to take control.
That includes the arrival in Sydney over the next week of more than 17,000 Australians who have been overseas and need to be quarantined in hotel rooms throughout the city for 14 days. He will be appointed the State Emergency Operations Controller, a role usually assigned to a Deputy Commissioner but escalated given the scale of the problem.
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Meanwhile, Deputy Commissioners Gary Worboys and Assistant Commissioner Karen Webb will help with the COVID-19 response.
The state government has been increasingly leaning on the police force in recent days to crack down on confirmed COVID-19 cases flouting self-isolation guidelines.
It comes after NSW Health and Australian Border Force were embroiled in a blame game over the management of the virus on cruise ships.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases reached 1617 on Friday night, with more than 200 of those cases linked to cruise ship passengers.
NSW Police are in the process of compiling a list of confirmed cases and recently returned overseas travellers.
Officers across the state will contact those people to make sure they are self-isolating and fine them if they have ignored the rules.
Already this week, NSW Police issued eight infringement notices to a business owner and recently returned travellers who were meant to be in strict self-isolation.