The 3500-bed facility had been floated as an idea by some in the Territory, including a Darwin business identity, just a few days before, kicking off a sequence of events that involved warp-speed bureaucracy, political bipartisanship and rapid response from the nation’s top critical care team.

A year on, National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre executive director Professor Len Notaras, whose AUSMAT team runs the international side of the facility, has recounted the events that led up to the birth of the Howard Springs facility.

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He said a “couple of people around town” had mentioned the disused mining camp, including local business identity Penni Tastula, and “sown the seeds of what has become a brilliant idea”.

“Penni had rung me on a couple of occasions saying she had this brainwave and I thought it was brilliant,” Prof Notaras said.

“The chief and health ministers picked it up at very short notice when we were exploring it and deciding that Christmas Island wasn’t necessarily the place (to house evacuees).

“It all coalesced … nobody threw a spanner in the works, they all thought ‘oh yeah, this is a good idea’.”

According to notes provided by the Chief Minister’s office, NT officials started planning to stand up Howard Springs in early February as “officer-level” discussion between the government and the commonwealth began.

By Thursday February 6, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton had reached out to Chief Minister Michael Gunner about using the site to house Australians on the second evacuation flight out of Wuhan.

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In turn, Mr Gunner asked that Mr Dutton and federal Health Minister Greg Hunt personally assure the local council, the Good Shepherd Lutheran College and Opposition MPs that the community would be safe.

On Friday, Mr Hunt, then chief health officer Brendan Murphy and his deputy Paul Kelly visited the site, alongside community leaders, and deemed the camp safe, secure and appropriate.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison that afternoon, during a visit to Townsville, confirmed the site would be used.

Behind the scenes, the grand logistic, health and Defence effort was underway.

An AUSMAT team was dispatched to Wuhan and on Sunday February 9, 266 passengers landed in Darwin and were taken to Howard Springs.

Less than two weeks later, on February 20, 160 passengers on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, including Perth man Trevor Overton and his wife Hernrisa were sent to Howard Springs.

“It was an interesting time, it had the potential of being very scary, but that’s not me,” Mr Overton said.

Mr Overton said a couple who were in the donga opposite his were taken away after falling ill.

“If he had leaned over his banister and I had leaned over mine we could have almost shook hands,” he said.

James Kwan, 78, was flown to his home state of WA and would become the first Australian to die from the virus.

Prof Notaras said the NCCTRC, established after the 2002 Bali bombings to be the “best readily deployable medical workforce” in Australia, had never run a quarantine facility until the first evacuation to Christmas Island but had trained for outbreaks and was skilled in isolation.

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He said federal officials tell him it’s now the “gold plate, or the platinum plus” quarantine facility in the country.

“The big risk for us and for all of us in this nation is complacency, we can’t take for granted what we do,” Prof Notaras said.

“You can’t take your eye off the ball for one second because we are dealing with an enormous risk of human life.”