Health officials ran ‘ship outbreak’ drill last May

A pandemic drill exercise last year involved a hypothetical ‘outbreak’ on board a cruise ship docked in Sydney Harbour.

Chief Medical Officer Professor Brendan Murphy appears before a Senate Inquiry Select Committee on COVID-19 and the Australian Government’s response to the pandemic. Picture: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy has revealed that health officials conducted a pandemic drill exercise with NSW Health in May last year based on a scenario that involved a hypothetical “outbreak” on board a cruise ship docked in Sydney Harbour.

Dr Murphy assured a Senate committee scrutinising the government’s response to the pandemic on Thursday that reports suggesting Australia had not completed a pandemic drill in a decade were “completely untrue”.

Asked why then the government had “got it so wrong” when it came to the Ruby Princess debacle, which can be linked to at least 20 deaths across the nation, Dr Murphy said some “regretful” decisions had been made.

“In retrospect, there were some decisions made that everyone regrets … clearly there were mistakes made,” he said. “Everyone was doing their best in tricky and tense times at what was probably the peak of the outbreak.”

One in 10 coronavirus cases throughout Australia have been linked to the ill-fated cruise ship.

Dr Murphy had previously defended NSW Health’s assessment of the Ruby Princess as low-risk, telling the first day of hearings the ship had “only been to New Zealand and back, and New Zealand was not a high-risk country”.

“I think everyone was quite surprised there had been a significant COVID-19 outbreak on board.”

However, he said if passengers had been moved into a structured quarantine situation after disembarking, “there may have been less community transmission”.

“Let’s not blame anybody but wait and see,” he said, referring to a NSW commission of inquiry.

Dr Murphy said despite a reduction of local cases, the government was concerned about a second wave of infections, as had occurred in Singapore, and any relaxing of social distancing would require strong public health measures to counterbalance risk.

“We have to be very, very aware that while we’ve only had seven cases over the last 24 hours — we’re in a wonderful position — there is a permanent risk of further waves. This is a highly infectious virus, and can take off fairly quickly.”

He said he expected restrictions on international travel to remain for at least three to four months, but flagged that social-distancing measures could be relaxed to allow for small gatherings.

He said the one exception could be New Zealand but at this stage that was purely speculative.

The Australian Health Protection Principal Committee has also been asked to consider “community sport and some retail shops”.