And thanks for attending the regular update on the novel coronavirus
infection. Today I'm pleased to announce that we still only have four patients
that have been confirmed to have the novel coronavirus infection in New South
Wales so there's been no new patients have been confirmed. I note that
the total in across Australia is 12 confirmed patients. We currently have 24
patients, suspected patients that are under investigation and pleasingly we've
cleared 134 people have tested negative for the infection. As I've indicated the
fact that we're seeing more cases of cases under investigation indicates that
people are coming forward for testing, it also reflects that our case definition
has broadened to anyone who has returned back from mainland China and who has
developed respiratory symptoms, even those that are in the milder spectrum
within 14 days of their return we're asking to come forward for testing. We've
also been deploying teams at the airport and I'm pleased to announce that on Sunday
the second of February we met 1680 people were screened by the New South
Wales Health team and nine were referred for testing and all of those tests came
back negative. On Monday today as at 2 p.m. we screened another 1500 people
returning from China, six were referred to testing and we're expecting that
they'll be around another 400 people for screening this afternoon because we'll
be on duty till the last planes arrive.
Happy to take questions.
Three of the patients were discharged and are doing
well and one patient remains hospitalised but in a stable condition
Those were the four, so my comments relate to the four people confirmed with
coronavirus infection, three of those have been discharged and are doing well
in the community and the other patient is still an inpatient and their
condition is stable.
What we are observing is a spectrum and we're
understanding that the novel coronavirus infection is causing quite milder
disease as well as the more severe disease. We currently only have a small
range of patients and I'm not here to comment on the case the the clinical
details for all of those cases but I think what we're seeing is a spectrum
but it's been pleasing to see that we haven't to my knowledge had people that
have required intensive care or more more of the very severe end of the
spectrum of the disease, which has been reported in some countries and clearly
some deaths
We liaise closely with our colleagues in the Department of Education and I
want to acknowledge the good work that the Department of Education, their
teachers and principals have done, have undertaken. So I haven't heard any issues
that have been raised with me but, really the Department of Education would have a
much more hands-on feedback but I'm pleased that the community responded to
the messages around not returning to school, if you'd come from China, as an
additional precaution and also the message around if you'd come back from
the Hubei province to particularly stay away and self isolate.
We have our had an intensive engagement with our contacts of cases and I would
say that in my interactions with a number of representatives from the
Chinese community there's been a strong level of awareness. it's been certainly
circulating widely on a number of community information platforms and
nothing's been brought to my attention about concerns about people not taking
and heeding the advice and I suppose the corollary of that is we continue to get
calls from people that are going to either ring the GPs going to EDs or
ringing the health direct number and the fact that we are testing patients
people coming forward gives me an a degree of confidence that we are
detecting, doing our best to detect any cases in the community so we can ensure
that there's even a more stronger isolation and Quarantine of the contacts
of any confirmed cases.
The Australian Health Protection principle committee is continuing to
meet daily we've I was late for this teleconference because we were just
concluding a meeting and it's very important that we monitor the evolving
situation and I think what we've learned from previous infectious disease
outbreaks is we need to continually be prepared to adjust our response. So at
the moment the objectives are of our response
are clearly containment and all the actions were put in place are aimed at
containing the viruses spread in the New South Wales community and the Australian
community globally. We need to learn more about how severe the virus is, how easily
it's spread, it's transmissibility in mild disease, all of these factors will be
critical to our understanding about whether containment in the long term is
an object, remains an objective. So the message is we are looking daily at the
new information that's rising and we will modify our advice depending on the
results of that intelligence from across the world and particular analyses we're
undertaking in in Australia as part of that work that we're doing with the
Commonwealth and other states and territories.
So the patients were screened for virus detection, they were also as for the
utmost of precaution asked to self isolate for seven days after discharge and there
will be repeat testing and there was also culturing of the virus test. So a
comprehensive plan was put in place and the public can be confident that they
pose no risk.
The Australian Health Protection principle committee advised a
range of border measures and those comments I would like, haven't got them
printed out before me but but the statement issued by AHPCC reflects the
decision of that group, but border measures are ultimately a matter for the
Commonwealth and as you're aware those Commonwealth
actions have been put in place and our role has been to deploy health teams to
the airport to assess returning travelers who may have transited China
or come directly from China on flights, ensure that we screen assess them and
test them and we're taking a very precautionary approach to screening
people with even very very mild symptoms, as we have learned increasingly this
disease can have very mild presentation and so to not miss any cases at all
we're taking this very precautionary approach
We just want, with self isolation, we've got a web with quite
detailed information and that's translated on our website, I think it
should be a should be loaded but clearly people can walk outside, people can walk
in the street, wearing a mask walking in the street as long as they're not in
direct contact, so we want to make sure that we're also managing the well-being
and the mental health of patients in self-isolation,
and and we've given the instructions in that sheet that protect public safety
but ensure that there isn't a risk to the community from the activities that
people can do whilst in self-isolation.
The Australian healthcare system is a robust one and we've been tested at
various times in my professional career. We've been tested with the 2009 h1n1
known as swine flu pandemic we've also had experience with SARS and MERS so in
New South Wales we have a very networked system and a lot of the work that we've
done over many years has really given us a resilience in the face of emerging
threats so we have a lot of planning in place should we need to surge any health
assets we have great intensive care unit capabilities we have plans. We have plans
for vaccine rollout, so all of the preparation work will stand us in good
stead should that arise, but at the moment I can't stress enough we are
currently, our actions to date are really trying to detect cases and contain
spread
We actually do have a test for the virus. So it's a PCR based test and our
laboratories from the beginning were able to test obviously they needed to
because they were didn't have actually any virus, they were having to do it from
the genetic material, but as we've had cases our labs have worked really
collaboratively to make sure that we've got what's called control specimens and
so that our tests are valid. So we now have great confidence in our tests and
what we're now doing is scaling up those tests so we've moved from one laboratory
in New South Wales to be able to undertake the test to two laboratories,
those laboratories I do it can increase the frequency of the tests like we'll do
a couple of runs a day so we're more rapidly getting those tests and then we
can expand that to other laboratories as we need to and clearly as we you know in
a technical sense streamline the tests and use more like kit based tests it can
mean that the size of this number of samples that can be tested on every run
can actually be increased markedly and so initially we were constrained by
having about 50 samples on the run, but we hope progressively that will increase
be to be increased as we routinise it, bring it into our route the way
we do routine testing for respiratory viruses
I'm pleased that we have have had seen increasing rates of testing and and I
suppose in the next little bit we're planning for actually trying to get more
people tested because we want to really test and make sure that we're not
missing anyone with the disease. And so the fact that we haven't had any more
confirmed cases gives me some reassurance and the fact that we're
testing lots of people, I would anticipate and we'll be messaging around
testing more to really give us that assurance and we'll also be using some
of our other surveillance systems to really check that we're not missing
anything in terms of transmission, but at the current time there is no evidence of
transmission outside acquisition either through contact to a case confirmed case
from China or a contact of a contact. We've confirmed disease met that may
have acquired outside China or the travel you know coming back from most of
our cases have traveled to Wuhan directly.
So we are testing the community and we're asking people to self present with
symptoms as throughout the out break we initially focus on the Wuhan city of
Wuhan then as we got evidence that it had spread there was community
transmission more in the Hubei province of Wugan is a major city
we then spread our net to capture those people who have spent time in Hubei
province and now our case definition is anyone who's travelled to mainland China
so progressively we expect that we'll capture more people coming forward that
fit into that category. I'd like to also say that, the you know as I've said, 134
people have tested negative and most of those have different viruses like
respiratory syncytial virus, flu rhinoviruses, so in all likelihood people
that are coming forward will have an alternate diagnosis, but it gives us
reassurance that we're not missing cases and at this moment we're
trying to not miss cases and that's why I can sort of give you that reassurance
that we don't have any evidence at the current time that there is any community
transmission outside those direct links I just discussed.
No, at this stage we the risk group is really understanding the risk associated
with broader travel to China. So clearly we want anyone who's come from the Wuhan
city Hubei province and now we're saying the China mainland to come
forward if you have respiratory symptoms with or without fever and get testing, so
this will take a little bit of a transition but we're raising lab
capacity and we're working with our partners in the laboratories that can
take the specimen safely in the private laboratory sector to really increase
access to testing and we'll work with our colleagues in general practice to
make sure that general practice is well positioned to safely manage these
patients and increase access to diagnostic testing.
I look not that that I'm aware of and I've got to say we get given information
which is relevant to our understanding and we do protect patient, you know,
privacy. We are obviously interested in knowing if people have got significant,
and we know from the overseas information that people had a worse
course if they actually had significant underlying comorbidities, this gentleman
still isn't in the in the most severe of severe areas so he's been stable and
had some ups and ups and downs but he still hasn't been in that area that
requiring intensive care unit admission and that more severe end. We I suppose
know as I said that patients with underlying comorbidities, respiratory
heart disease, diabetes are generally more at risk of having adverse outcomes
and that and age and that's borne out by some of the data that's coming out
internationally. I haven't actually got a patient update today but I will follow
that up and we will obviously announce that in due course but obviously
we're taking a very precautionary approach and we also know that for some
people they can have a course which is improvement a bit of a decline and in
you know improvement and I think we've we're all taking a very watchful
approach
Thanks everyone