The Federal Government has resisted pressure to extend travel bans to South Korea and Italy where the impact of the coronavirus is intensifying.
With the situation worsening in Iran, Australia has already announced travel restrictions on foreign nationals from that country citing its high death rate and concern over under-reported cases.
But despite diagnoses multiplying in South Korea and Italy, authorities have stopped short of extending restrictions to countries that have more reported cases.
On Monday, Health Minister Greg Hunt announced the government now advises Australians to exercise a high degree of caution across all of Italy, and to reconsider the need to travel to 10 virus-affected towns in the north.
Minister for Health Greg Hunt and Chief Medical Officer Professor Brendan Murphy. Source: AAP
"If you are returning from Italy or South Korea, and you work as a healthcare worker, or as a residential aged care worker, you should not attend your regular work for 14 days," Mr Hunt added.
But chief medical officer Brendan Murphy said a complete travel ban was not recommended because the situation was "confined and being localised" in these countries where the outbreaks have increased.
"The risk and proportionality of putting in a travel ban was not justified in terms of its benefits of health protection of the Australian community," he said.
He said travel bans at this stage were only a way of delaying "the burden" of new cases coming into Australia.
"It is no longer possible to absolutely prevent new cases coming in, given the increasing changes in epidemiology around the country," he said.
But some have questioned the government's approach.
Chief Medical Officer Professor Brendan Murphy. Source: AAP
Ying Zhang, an epidemiologist from the University of Sydney, told SBS News that also preventing travellers from Italy and South Korea entering Australia could slow the virus's spread in the short term.
“If you put a travel ban to China and Iran – why not Italy and South Korea? They are currently having the highest number of cases,” she said.
But she agreed it would be "impossible" to apply travel bans to all countries with a surge of in cases.
Globally the number of coronavirus cases has passed 88,300 diagnoses with at least 2,996 deaths. Nearly 43,000 people have now recovered.
South Korea has suffered the largest number of cases outside China with some 3,526 diagnoses in the country and at least 20 deaths.
Meanwhile, the virus now has a foothold in Europe with 1,128 cases in Italy prompting authorities to place much of the county’s north in lockdown.
Sanjaya Senanayake, an infectious diseases expert at the Australian National University, told SBS News further travel bans should be reconsidered, but they would likely only delay the inevitable.
“Look it is certainly something that needs to be reconsidered and reassessed,” he said.
“[But] the purpose of a travel ban wouldn’t be so much to stop transmission but more to delay it.
“You could have travel bans for most of the world but in practical terms in this day and age when we are so connected globally … then it just won’t work.”
The World Health Organization has upgraded its assessment of the risk of the global spread of COVID-19 to “very high”, the highest level of alarm.
Australia has already taken steps to implement a pandemic response plan despite the WHO’s decision to hold back from declaring coronavirus a pandemic.
Nigel McMillan, an infectious diseases expert at Griffith University, said Australians travelling overseas should closely follow government advice and potentially reconsider their need to travel.
“Clearly you are not going to Iran or China (and) I would hesitate to visit Korea or the northern parts of Italy right now,” he said.
“It would just probably seem a sensible approach not to travel.”
Queensland health authorities have urged all people who have returned from anywhere overseas in the past fortnight to seek immediate medical advice if they become ill.
But NSW and Victorian health officials' advice remains confined to those who had travelled to at-risk countries; Iran, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Thailand.
Mr McMillan said he supported authorities’ plans to intercept at-risk travellers at airports but said there remained uncertainty over whether this would detect if travellers were carrying the virus.
“In the long run travel bans from any country will no longer be useful and we’ll move to the next phase of our response which is essentially control and isolation.”
