Less than two months after the coronavirus became a public health emergency in Australia we are dangerously short of the reagent needed to carry out tests for the killer virus.
News Corp understands that stocks of this reagent are under pressure in Western Australia and Queensland.
While other states such as South Australia have around a months supply.
The chemical is held by public pathology labs, private pathology labs as well as key scientific organisation such as the CSIRO.
However, News Corp understands that the bulk of the supply is made by a single pharmaceutical company – ROCHE.
The chemical is imported into Australia and supplies worldwide are dwindling as coronavirus spreads and it is needed by multiple laboratories.
The countries that make the reagent are keeping the supplies they have for their own coronavirus testing.
This outcome has yet again highlighted Australia’s dangerous over reliance on foreign countries for pharmaceutical supplies.
Australia’s chief medical officer Professor Brendan Murphy said today the government was “working very hard now to make sure we have enough testing equipment for that eventuality.’’
“We are doing a lot of work to procure and expand our testing capability,“ he said.
“We are focusing our testing on returned travellers or contacts of people who are
symptomatic.
“We don’t want people with an ordinary mild cold in Australia to go and get tested. We need to preserve the testing for those who need it,” Professor Murphy said.
Health officials have been appealing to people who are unlikely to have the coronavirus not to present for testing to preserve the tests available for those most likely to have the virus.
The government only wants people who have recently travelled overseas or recently been in contact with a coronavirus infected person to present for testing if they have the symptoms of coronavirus which include sore throat or a dry cough.
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) South Australia president and chair of the AMA’s national ethics committee Dr Chris Moy said there had been variable levels of pandemic planning across Australia states.
“We need to be doing testing on appropriate people so we don’t use it up faster,“ he said.
Part of the problem was that the criteria for testing was continually changing leaving GPs confused, he said.
A rush on testing occurred after Health Minister Greg Hunt said last weekend that anyone who was worried they had the coronavirus should get tested.
He said it was better to over test than under test but later Chief Medical Officer Professor Brendan Murphy changed the advice and said only those who had either travelled recently or been in contact with a coronavirus case needed testing.
Dr Moy said the situation with the testing kits underlined yet again why Australia needed a single national centre for disease control to manage the outbreak of infectious diseases such as coronavirus.
The need for testing kits might abate once the coronavirus infection spread more widely throughout the community, he said.
Once that happened we would no longer be trying to identify infected individuals and trace their contacts and would be concentrating on treating those who were sick.
When this happened we would be identifying the sickest people by X-raying their lungs to see whether they had pneumonia and needed hospitalisation, he said.
US HOUSE PASSESS CORONAVIRUS BILL
The House easily passed a bipartisan coronavirus aid package early Saturday morning after intense negotiating between Democrats and the Trump administration.
The bill passed 363-40, with 40 Republicans voting against it.
The “Families First coronavirus Response Act” would secure free tests for all Americans — even the uninsured — and mandatory two weeks of paid sick leave for those affected by the health crisis.
The sweeping package also provides up to three months of paid family and medical leave and strengthened unemployment insurance to brace for workers who could be laid off during the pandemic.
“[The legislation] is focused directly on providing America’s families, who must be our first priority,” Nancy Pelosi said before the vote. “The three most important parts of this bill are testing, testing testing.”
President Trump had until Friday night opposed the legislation, arguing earlier in the day that he wanted more sacrifices from Democrats — namely, for a payroll tax cut be included in the bill.
But the president came around later in the evening, saying he “fully” supported the package in a series of tweets urging both parties to vote in favour.
“This Bill will follow my direction for free coronavirus tests, and paid sick leave for our impacted American workers, Trump tweeted.
“I have directed the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of Labor to issue regulations that will provide flexibility so that in no way will Small Businesses be hurt.”
The Senate is expected to take up the legislation next week.
STUDY SAYS GOVERNMENTS MUST ACT HARDER AND FASTER
A new analysis suggests governments need to act faster and take even stronger action to reduce social interaction to control the coronavirus, well beyond the shutdown of large-scale events imposed from Monday.
Countries that act fast to shut down social contact can reduce the number of deaths from COVID19 by a factor of 10, Stanford University graduate Tomas Pueyo has calculated. And days and hours can make an enormous difference.
Mr Pueyo has studied the epidemiology of coronavirus by looking at case numbers in Italy, China and Europe.
The true number of cases of the virus is likely to be five times higher than official data suggests, he warns.
“Delaying action will mean in two to four weeks, when the entire world is in lockdown, when the few precious days of social distancing you will have enabled will have saved lives, people won’t criticise you anymore: They will thank you for making the right decision,” he warns world leaders.
Part of the problem is that the official number of cases is far lower than the true number of cases in the community he says.
When the Chinese government shut down Wuhan there were just 400 official cases but in reality there were 2500 new cases that day he found.
Two days later when China locked down 15 other cities, cases started to go down within just two days, his analysis found.
Officially case numbers in China continued to rise but these people had been infected in the week before the shut down started.
He warns Europeans have been too slow to act.
“With the number of cases we see today in countries like the US, Spain, France, Iran, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden or Switzerland, Wuhan was already in lockdown,” he said.
The difference between acting quickly and acting slowly can be seen in the contrasting death rates between the Chinese province of Hubei and the rest of China, Mr Pueyo says.
“Hubei’s fatality rate will probably converge towards 4.8 per cent. Meanwhile, for the rest of China, it will likely converge to 0.9 per cent”.
“Iran’s and Italy’s Deaths / Total Cases are both converging towards the three to four per cent range. My guess is their numbers will end up around that figure too,” he said.
Countries that are overwhelmed will have a fatality rate between three and five per cent, he said.
The reason that faster, tougher action is needed to contain the virus was that the world’s health system will be unable to cope, he said.
The US did not have nearly enough hospital beds or face masks to cope with a full scale outbreak of the virus. Australia is already rationing access to the coronavirus test, trying to preserve them for those most likely to have the virus because we don’t have enough tests to meet demand. And states are scrambling to source extra ventilators to keep people with severe forms of the virus alive.
Members of the public have also expressed concern that Australia was not taking tough enough action at our borders.
Travellers returning to Australia this week said they had not been approached by any border control officials to give them information about the coronavirus nor had their temperatures been tested.
ANOTHER CABINET MINISTER TESTED FOR CORONAVIRUS
A second Cabinet minister was tested for the deadly coronavirus before Peter Dutton was diagnosed with COVID-19.
The Sunday Telegraph has confirmed Treasurer Josh Frydenberg fell ill late last week after attending the G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors in Saudi Arabia in late February.
Mr Frydenberg said he was tested for the virus on Thursday but received a negative result on Friday morning, before fellow minister Peter Dutton returned a positive test. Both ministers attended a Cabinet meeting in Sydney on Tuesday where senior ministers agreed to a stimulus package to stave off a recession.
Late Saturday night Mr Frydenberg told The Sunday Telegraph he was taking antibiotics and resting, but did not need to self isolate.
Labor has questioned why the public was told to isolate if they came into “close contact” with a coronavirus case when ministers were continuing to work. On Saturday the Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said “close contact” was defined as “face-to-face contact for at least 15 minutes” or being in the same enclosed space as someone who has tested positive for the COVID-19 for at least two hours when that person was infectious.
Despite his poor health, Mr Frydenberg will unveil a new coronavirus Business Liaison Unit to support employment and business on Sunday.
The new unit will be staffed by officials from across the public service who will provide up to date information to business groups on the Government’s response to the coronavirus.
Mr Frydenberg said it would allow critical information to be disseminated quickly and effectively across the business community”.
IVANKA TRUMP SELF ISOLATES
It came as Ivanka Trump self-isolated after her exposure to Mr Dutton.
US President Donald Trump also said he would soon be tested for the deadly virus, however the White House sought to downplay the threat to its most senior members.
Ms Trump and Attorney-General Bill Barr yesterday worked from home and were not planning to go into a 14-day self-isolation.
Mr Trump said he would “most likely” be tested for coronavirus “fairly soon” after he last week spent time with an aide to the Brazilian president who was later confirmed as a sufferer.
Mr Trump capped off a tumultuous week with a White House address that bolstered Wall Street’s biggest one-day jump since 2008.
He declared coronavirus a national emergency and dedicated a potential $US50 billion ($A78 billion) towards the fight.
BAZ LUHRMANN GOES INTO SELF ISOLATION
Baz Luhrmann has revealed he has gone into isolation after Tom Hanks and his wife were diagnosed with coronavirus on his film set in Queensland.
The Australian film director, whose movie on Elvis was stalled while in pre-production on the Gold Coast, said he was in isolation for 10 days.
Hanks and wife Rita Wilson contracted the virus this week.
Luhrmann took to social media to thank Queensland Health for their “tremendous support”.
He said he and his family were “healthy and well”.
APPLE TO CLOSE FOR TWO WEEKS
It comes as Apple stores around the world are set to close their doors for two weeks due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The technology giant announced all retail stores outside of Greater China will shut until March 27 to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said he firstly wanted to recognise Apple’s family in Greater China.
“Though the rate of infections has dramatically declined, we know COVID-19’s effects are still being strongly felt,” he said.
“As of today, all of our stores in Greater China have reopened.”
Mr Cook went on to say the best way to minimise the risk of the virus spreading further was to “reduce density and maximise social distance”.
Apple will allow for flexible work arrangements for office workers worldwide with deep cleaning, health screenings and temperature checks occurring at office sites.
Retail workers will continue to receive payment in alignment with business and usual operations by expanding leave policies and accommodating for families affected by COVID-19.
Furthermore, Apple will donate $15 million (USD) to help treat those affected by the pandemic at a community and economic level.
ARDERN’S TOUGHEST BORDER MEASURES TO STOP VIRUS
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is taking the world’s toughest border security measures to stop the coronavirus from spreading, after she declared all international arrivals – including returning Kiwis – must self-isolate for a fortnight as the country locks down to ward off the spread of coronavirus.
Ms Ardern announced the measure on Saturday after an emergency meeting of cabinet.
“We do not take these decisions lightly,” she said.
“New Zealand will have the widest-ranging and toughest border restrictions of anyone in the world.” Ms Ardern said the measure applied to people, and not goods, though gave an exemption to people arriving from the Pacific – a region largely devoid of the virus.
The decisions will take effect as of midnight NZDT on Sunday. New Zealand has just six cases of the disease to date, and none that have been transmitted through the community.
Ms Ardern also announced cruise ships would not be allowed to dock in New Zealand until June.
The decision will be reviewed in 16 days.
To illustrate her point, she used a graphic that has gone viral around the world which explains how we can reduce the spread of the virus.
The graphic, titled ‘Flatten the curve’ explains the need for social distancing measures as confusion about the seriousness of the virus grows.
Earlier on Saturday, the government announced the cancellation of a national remembrance service in honour of the Christchurch mosque attacks, which took place on March 15 last year.
The immediate status of NRL season faces fresh fears following the New Zealand government’s decision to force all international arrivals to self-quarantine for a fortnight beginning midnight on Sunday (NZT).
The development has prompted the Warriors, who are currently in NSW facing Newcastle in their season-opener, to hold emergency talks with NRL officials at 5pm on Saturday afternoon (AEDT).
“Cameron George (CEO) says the club is awaiting more details about travel restrictions just announced by the Government in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic,” the Warriors said in a statement on Saturday.
Australia’s one-day international series against New Zealand has also been abandoned after the New Zealanders had to rush home due to coronavirus precautions.
The New Zealand government announced Saturday that all incoming passengers would be subject to a 14-day quarantine, from midnight Sunday.
“A consequence of this is that we need to get our team back to New Zealand before the restriction is imposed, meaning it will not be able to participate in the two remaining Chappell-Hadlee fixtures,” a New Zealand Cricket spokesman said.
Australia won the first match on Friday at the Sydney Cricket Ground by 71 runs, with no spectators in the stadium. The second match was set for Sunday, also at the SCG, and the third next Friday in Hobart.
The teams were scheduled to play three Twenty20s against each other in New Zealand, starting from March 24, but those have also been called off. “NZC believes both these series can be replayed in their entirety at a later and more appropriate date,” the spokesman said. “NZC understands and supports the government’s position. This is a time of unprecedented risk and peril, and the personal health and wellbeing of our players is paramount.”
WE’VE BEEN TESTED, WHY NOT SCOMO?
A well known Queensland lawyer Deb Kilroy has revealed she and her friend were on the same plane as Peter Dutton and have had tests for coronavirus. She took to Twitter asking why she’s also had to be quarantined, unlike others including the Prime Minister, who are not being tested at all.
CARNIVAL CRUISE LINES SUSPENDS OPERATIONS
The nation’s biggest cruise ship company has announced it will suspend operations across Australian-based ships for at least a month in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Carnival Cruise Line on Saturday announced it would suspend operations across Australian-based ships until at least April 13.
Two ships currently at sea will continue their voyages before returning to Sydney as scheduled.
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