Coronavirus: plan for 50,000 tests a day if necessary

Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy wants to dramatically increase the number of daily coronavirus tests in Australia.

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Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy wants to dramatically increase the number of daily coronavirus tests in Australia in a bid to stay on top of the pandemic, as the national cabinet develops strat­egies to make workplaces safe and get people back playing sport.

Dr Murphy revealed that up to 50,000 Australians could be tested each day if necessary to be “abso­lutely sure” the disease was being contained, with less than one person­ being infected for every case of the coronavirus in all states except Tasmania.

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PDF: See how quickly the virus has spread in each state

Over the past seven days there was an average of almost 13,000 tests each day — an increase of about 5000 compared with the previous week. There have been 482,000 tests nationally so far.

States and territories have expanded­ testing so that anyone with acute respiratory symptoms, such as a cough, sore throat or runny nose, can be tested for COVID-19, achieving one of the three key pillars Scott Morrison said must be in place before restriction­s can be relaxed in three weeks.

The other two components include a greater tracing capability, which the Prime Minister hopes can be achieved if enough Australians download a soon-to-be-released­ tracking app for smart­phones, and rapid-response teams to quickly contain outbreaks.

Ten principles to create safe workplaces during the corona­virus pandemic were released on Friday, advising that as restrictions were gradually relaxed, businesses and workers must adapt and promote safe work practices such as social distancing and “exemplary hygiene measures”.

Similar guidelines for profes­sional, community and individual sport and recreation are expected next week.

“People would welcome seeing these things happening again, and not just at the elite and professional level,’’ Mr Morrison said.

“Everything around, from going for a surf to having a game of football or whatever it happens to be, netball. We want to get back to a place where that can happen and we can have the confidence to do it safely. And we want to do that as soon as we can.”

The Weekend Australian understands national cabinet is also considering easing restrictions on places of worship, after closing religious­ services to the public.

Amid confirmation the government will introduce legislation to ensure people’s information stored by the “track and trace” app can be accessed only by health authorities, Mr Morrison said the tool would help ensure Aust­ralians could get back to work, school and into community sport.

Amazon Web Services, a subsidiary of US giant Amazon, has been chosen to store the data in Australia, in a move that was slammed by the charity Digital Rights Watch.

“What we don’t want to see is a stop-start approach to our road back,” the Prime Minister said.

“Of course there will be outbreaks. I think we can anticipate that … You’ve gotta be careful when you come to relax some of these restrictions.”

The 14-day quarantining in hotels­ for travellers returning from countries with significant community transmission of coronavirus could “potentially” be in place until there was a vaccine, Dr Murphy said, but increasing the size of gatherings would be considered by the national cabinet in the short term.

“States and territories will make their own calls over the next few weeks,” Mr Morrison said.

Federal parliament will resume on May 12 for three days to consider “a couple” of coronavirus bills and other legislation, with social-distancing measures in place in the chambers.

More sitting weeks are expected before July.