‘We made right call on pandemic plan’: Greg Hunt praises ‘world leading’ coronavirus response

Seven countries have reported their first confirmed cases in the last 24 hours, as Greg Hunt praises Australia’s response.

Seven more countries have been confirmed as having cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of affected countries to 49, Health Minister Greg Hunt has confirmed.

Speaking outside the COAG health ministers’ meeting in Melbourne on Friday afternoon, Mr Hunt said there had now been almost 83,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus worldwide, and more than 2800 lives lost.

He said the spread of the virus overseas confirmed that the government had made the right decision in activating the commonwealth’s coronavirus pandemic plan, and praised the states and territories for their efforts.

“Their work in preparing the hospitals, preparing the medical workforce, is not just exemplary but literally world leading,” Mr Hunt said.

“The 15 cases that have been diagnosed in the general community were all isolated rapidly. They were contained individually.

“My judgment coming out of the meeting with the states and territories today is that we were better prepared, they were more advanced than I had previously known.”

Mr Hunt said the commonwealth would lead work in relation to the national medical stockpile, while the states and territories would take responsibility for hospitals and the establishment of respiratory clinics.

Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said people should be reassured that the vast majority of people infected with coronavirus had experienced very mild forms of the disease.

“Our concern of course is preparing for any patients who have the more severe delays who need hospital treatment and respiratory and other support,” Professor Murphy said.

“While we are preparing and we are realistic about what might come in the future weeks, we are not in a situation where anyone needs to be concerned.

“Nobody should go around wearing and wasting face masks please. We are not wanting the community to panic but we are obviously being transparent with the community that we think the international situation does mean it that it is very likely that we will get some more cases in Australia in coming weeks.”

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt during the COAG meeting. Picture: AAP

Victorian Health Minister Jenny Mikakos said she and Mr Hunt had discussed the possibility of working with local manufacturers to make medical supplies such as face masks in Australia.

“Greg and I have been having discussions around local manufacturers here in Victoria that may be able to scale up production,” Ms Mikakos said.

Professor Murphy said hospitals were working on contingency plans, which could involve deferring elective surgery.

“There is a lot of diversion work that hospitals can do,” he said.

“On previous occasions they have shown they can step up increase capacity, delay or cancel elective work, so we have lots of contingency plans.

“Every state and territory public hospital will prepare.”

Mr Hunt said every state and territory was examining appropriate locations for quarantining of those with or at risk of coronavirus.