Scott Morrison says Australian hospitals ready to handle coronavirus if it strikes

Scott Morrison moves to reassure Australians if a pandemic hits our shores.

Scott Morrison has reassured Australians that the nation’s hospital system will be able to handle the coronavirus if it ultimately hits our shores.

Australia’s chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, on Tuesday formally alerted parliament to “a human coronavirus with pandemic potential”. This authorised Australian Border Force and other government officials to isolate people at airports if they ­arrived with symptoms of the virus.

A Brisbane man suspected of having the coronavirus after visiting the affected Chinese region of Wuhan has had a quarantine on him lifted.

The Prime Minister took to Twitter to say the national incident response centre has been activated and Australians should not be alarmed by the threat of viruses.

“I’m advised by the Chief Medical Officer the risk of transmission in Australia remains low, however the situation is evolving,” he said.

“We have put in place new measures to protect Australians with biosecurity and health officials now meeting every flight from Wuhan for screening. DFAT has raised the level of its travel advisory for Wuhan City, recommending travellers exercise a high degree of caution there.”

“Our National Incident Response Centre has been activated and is helping co-ordinate our response with Commonwealth medical experts working together with states and territories.

“We have the best health system in the world and we are prepared to deal with this situation. While Australians should remain alert, they should not be alarmed.”

There are 219 flights a week from China to six Australian cities, according to Tourism Australia. Three flights a week land in Sydney direct from Wuhan.

Dr Murphy announced extra border measures at airports and travel warnings for Wuhan, where the Australian women’s soccer team, the Matildas, is scheduled to play three Olympic qualification matches next month. He said recent developments included significant increases in reported cases but also evidence of limited human-to-human transmission.

Health authorities and border ­officials are on alert for a possible pandemic of the deadly corona­virus emerging from China, ­fuelled by a “perfect storm” of conditions including millions of Chinese travelling for new year celebrations.

Nine people have died from the virus so far and the number of cases has passed 400 worldwide, with a man being tested for the virus in Brisbane and the US confirming its first case in Washington.

The Brisbane man was quarantined for a day after showing signs of respiratory problems on his return from Wuhan, the city in central China that is the suspected source of the coronavirus.

V I R U S G R A P H I C

Health Minister Greg Hunt said it was up to Football Federation Australia to decide whether the Matildas’ trip would go ahead, and added that he expected they would follow both the best medical and DFAT travel advice.

“We have upgraded our travel advice to exercise a high degree of caution. What that means is don’t travel to markets,” Mr Hunt told ABC News on Wednesday.

“In their case, they will have the best possible medical advice, so they will make decisions based on the advice from medical authorities, from their own travelling party.

“So at the moment, they’ll continue to follow the Australian Government and the medical advice. If the situation changes, the number one thing is the health, the safety of the players.”

Mr Hunt also said while the government was working with health authorities around the world, people who suspect they have coronavirus symptoms must self-report for their own safety.

“We’re working with the World Health Organisation, with national authorities in the United States and other countries as well as with all of the states to make sure that we have advice,” he said.

“If anybody has these symptoms, if they have been in Wuhan in particular, but in areas where the disease has broken out, then they should report themselves to their GP or to the emergency department immediately.

“We expect that any passengers (from Wuhan) that do have issues will self-report because it’s in their own interests, but if not, then there are strong powers”

The new epidemic is a unique strain believed to have emerged at a seafood market.

Queensland chief health officer Jeannette Young warned that there was no vaccine available for the virus “and we don’t see one on the horizon … There is no specific treatment other than supportive care.”

University of Queensland associate professor of virology Ian Mackay said the combination of Chinese New Year and the fact the coronavirus presented as pneumonia during China’s flu season were cause for concern. “It is a perfect storm for a number of reasons: the Wuhan coronavirus — it does not even really have a name yet — does not really distinguish itself like SARS did. It just looks like any other pneumonia,” Associate Professor Mackay said. “It’s happening in peak flu season in China and it looks a lot like flu. On top of that, you have the lunar new year, which is a mass annual migration of people. Literally millions of people are travelling.”

Scott Morrison said Dr Murphy had advised him that health authorities were not dealing with an outbreak like the 2003 SARS virus. That disease spread to a dozen countries and killed 774 people. “He’s put that in a very different context and I think that’s important to note, that even those who are being treated in Wuhan are being treated in their homes. It’s a different level of gravity,” the Prime Minister said on Sky News.

“It’s still early days. The necessary precautions are being taken at airports.”

Professor Mackay, an expert in emerging viruses, said the Chinese “did everything right” by identifying and sequencing the virus quickly and releasing that information to the WHO.

He said the fact there was limited evidence of human-to-human spread was hopeful.

Dr Murphy said there was likely to be under-reporting and detection, particularly of mild cases, and the true numbers were likely to be significantly greater.

As of late Tuesday, 198 confirmed cases of the virus had been detected in the Wuhan region of China since December. Dr Murphy said 136 of those cases had been detected in the past three days. Three of the people infected — all adults — had died.

A further 23 cases had been detected in the Beijing and Guangdong provinces of China, in Japan, South Korea and Thailand. Some of those people had reported travelling to Wuhan, Dr Murphy said.

Thousands of Chinese inter­national students come from the Wuhan area. Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan said the government would do everything necessary to ensure the entry of students and tourists did not affect the health of Australians. “We have faced health scares before and will put all necessary steps in place to ensure everything is done to keep Australians disease-free,” he said.