New cases are inevitable, focus to contain spread

AUSTRALIA will be unable to keep out new cases of coronavirus and the best that can be done is to slow the onslaught, authorities say.

The nation’s Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy had a sobering statement for Australians yesterday. “It is no longer possible to absolutely prevent new cases coming in,” he said.

Efforts are now focused on quickly isolating newly infected people, dissuading Australians from heading to virus hot spots, and in the case of Iran using a travel ban to slow down that route of infection.

Australia has had 29 confirmed cases – 15 Chinese tourists or residents who had visited China, 10 passengers on the

Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan, and four people who recently returned from Iran.

Fifteen of those cases have been cleared.

Australia also recorded its first coronavirus death at the weekend when James Kwan, 78, died in a Perth hospital.

He and his wife were among evacuees from the Diamond

Princess, with both falling ill after being taken to Darwin for two weeks in quarantine.

Health Minister Greg Hunt explained yesterday why Australia has imposed a travel ban on arrivals from Iran, but not from other high-risk countries including South Korea and Italy, where cases doubled to over 1000 in one day.

He said he’d accepted the advice of chief medical officers including Professor Murphy, who said the outbreaks in Italy and South Korea were not considered as risky as Iran’s because they were contained and localised.

The health emergency has seen sharemarkets plunge across the world.