International travel restrictions will not be looked at for another four months

Coronavirus Australia International Travel Update
Professor Brendan Murphy has revealed no changes are envisaged to Australia's border restrictions in the next three to four months.

International travel restrictions will not be looked at for another four months

Professor Brendan Murphy has revealed no changes are envisaged to Australia's border restrictions in the next three to four months.
Coronavirus Australia International Travel Update
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Professor Brendan Murphy has revealed no changes are envisaged to Australia’s border restrictions in the next three to four months.

The Chief Medical Officer today fronted a parliamentary committee formed to consider how the Government had so far handled the COVID-19 outbreak.

When asked about timeframes for international borders to be re-opened, Professor Murphy was not optimistic this would happen anytime soon.

“The international situation at the moment is such that any relaxation of border measures would be very risky,” he told the committee.he international situation at the moment is such that any relaxation of border measures would be very risky,” he said.

“I wouldn’t be envisaging any material changes in that three to four months.”

Professor Murphy said the notion of re-opening the border to New Zealand only – and vice versa – was “quite speculative” at the present time.

Other measures may be relaxed sooner rather than later

While emphasising the need to keep international borders closed, Professor Murphy did confirm relaxing physical distancing measures were being considered.

However, he said that “stronger public health measures” would be needed to counteract the rise in risk of outbreaks

While not considering “large-scale gatherings” Mr Murphy confirmed smaller scale events would be looked at.

Virus remains startlingly infectious

Professor Murphy pointed the committee’s attention to Tasmania as a “very good example” of how easily the virus could get back out of control after a lull in new cases.

The outbreak among more than 70 health staff in Tasmania, which Professor Murphy told his New Zealand counterparts over a video call had been caused by an “illegal dinner party”.

However, Professor Murphy has since retracted those comments, which were based on rumour.

“Tasmania Health have been investigating, I haven’t seen the final report, but it seems likely healthcare workers picked up the virus, probably, from a Ruby Princess passenger who was being cared for,” he said.

Health staff and authorities were trained to prepare for pandemic outbreak on cruise ship coming into Sydney

Professor Murphy made the shocking revelation that a training exercise simulating a ship carrying infected passengers had been carried out less than a year ago, startling Senators who were asking why we had been so “unprepared” for the chaos caused by the Ruby Princess.

“Senators might be pleased to learn that we did an exercise in May last year on a pandemic in a cruise ship coming into Sydney,” he said.

Hundreds of coronavirus cases and more than 20 deaths have been linked to the Ruby Princess cruise ship alone, which docked and released passengers despite people onboard feeling unwell.

Professor Murphy put the bungle down to the stressful situation faced by all health and government agencies.

“Everyone was doing their best in a very tricky and tense time,” he said

Schools should re-open

Professor Murphy confirmed the proportion of children infected across the world was very small.

“The proportion is very small, those under 10 is a handful, there are a few more in the teenager group,” he said.

“Worldwide, (for those) under 19 is 2.4%. There is no evidence of student to student (transmission in Australia). There is some evidence of student to teacher transmission.”

While admitting there was concern for adults and “vulnerable teachers”, Mr Murphy doubled down on the position for schools to re-open their doors.

“We are encouraging schools to reopen,” he said.

It comes as unions and school leaders slammed the WA Government’s announcement to re-open its own schools while allowing parents to keep their children home if they wished, which is expected to force teachers to double up on their classroom and remote learning delivery.

The “game changing” moment for Australian authorities in responding to COVID-19

Professor Murphy said the moment everything changed in how Australia viewed and dealt with the virus was when news came of the “significant human-to-human transmission” out of China.

“There was clear evidence coming from China that there was significant human to human transmission, which was a game-changer,” he said.

“If you have a virus which does not spread from human to human, it is easy to contain but once you have human to human contamination it becomes risky and that is when we… started meetings daily with the principal committee which is our national committee comprising of all chief medical officers, and we set up a working group with what we call our communal diseases network and we started discussing with international counterparts.”

Professor Murphy said Australia listed COVID-19 as a human disease under the Biosecurity Act before many other countries, because it recognised early the pandemic potential of the virus.

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