'Every day is critical': Expert warns Australia's coronavirus tally will hit a THOUSAND within two weeks unless drastic changes are made
- Coronavirus numbers to rise exponentially unless drastic social isolation occurs
- Australia more likely to look like Italy than South Korea unless big changes made
- Italy's hospitals overwhelmed by just over 21,000 cases, care is now rationed
- Every day is critical: expert calls for schools to be shut, drastic social distancing
- Two more deaths in NSW, one was another resident of Dorothy Henderson Lodge
- Coronavirus symptoms: what are they and should you see a doctor?
Australia is likely to have at least 1,000 coronavirus cases in just two weeks, a biosecurity expert has warned.
Professor Raina MacIntyre, the head of Biosecurity at the University of New South Wales's Kirby Institute, said the number follows from the 25 cases two weeks ago to the 298 official infections around the nation on Sunday night.
Australia is more likely to follow a similar spike to Italy - which has risen from less than 100 cases a month ago to more than 21,000 on Sunday night - and less likely to follow a controlled, flattened curve such as Singapore or Hong Kong unless drastic social isolation measures are imposed.
Prime Minister points out the different possible progression pathways of the virus. It's vital to flatten the curve and slow down the rate of transmission to stop hospitals being overwhelmed
NSW Health said on Sunday that confirmed cases had risen to 134 in the worst-affected state
'It really depends on the decisions that are made in the coming days and weeks,' Professor MacIntyre told The Daily Telegraph.
'Every day is critical... the further we go into this the less and less prospect there is of effective control.'
People must stay home in social isolation to reduce transmission, health experts have warned for weeks.
Slowing the spread of the virus is crucial to ensuring the hospital system is not overwhelmed.
Italy is a developed Western nation with a modern health system and a population of more than 60 million people - yet its hospitals have been completely overwhelmed.
Italy had just over 21,000 coronavirus cases as of Sunday night.
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Italian hospitals are now being forced to ration care and are denying treatment to elderly patients based on their age and whether they have other conditions that make them less likely to survive.
Top medical experts in Australia have warned that Australia is just weeks behind Italy unless drastic measures are taken.
On Thursday NSW Chief Medical Officer Dr Kerry Chant estimated that 20 per cent of the population - around 5million Australians - would get coronavirus.
That means around half a million Australians may need intensive care, based on statistics from Italy which show 10 per cent of patients were sent to ICUs.
Professor Raina MacIntyre has warned that Australia's infection curve will look more like Europe's and less like South Korea's unless drastic social isolation measures are taken
Australia currently has around 2,500 ICU beds, only enough to cover 0.01 per cent of the population at once.
Professor MacIntyre said unless the government closes places where people gather such as schools, and expands travel restrictions to Europe, then Australia is likely to lose control of the infection curve.
Australia is also unlikely to contain the virus as effectively as South Korea which is aggressively testing hundreds of thousands of people who are at risk, whether or not they have symptoms.
'In Australia I think there's a shortage of test kits - that's an urgent issue that's being worked on at the moment,' Professor MacIntyre told the Daily Telegraph.
Five people have so far died of covid-19, the disease caused by coronavirus including four from New South Wales and one from Perth as of Sunday night.
New South Wales has been hit the hardest with the state's health department confirming 134 infections on Sunday including two new deaths: two women aged 77 and 90.
The 90-year-old woman was a resident of the embattled Dorothy Henderson Lodge aged care centre in north-west Sydney, where another resident, aged 95, died of the virus earlier this month.
The 77-year-old woman had recently arrived in Sydney, NSW Health said on Sunday evening.
Sydney University confirmed that a first-year student had tested positive on the weekend and had been hospitalised.
About 80 people have been told to isolate themselves for 14 days.
Six locations on the university's campus were being 'intensively cleaned' according to NSW Health guidelines, the university said in a statement.
Another resident of BaptistCare aged care home Dorothy Henderson Lodge in Sydney's Macquarie Park died of coronavirus on Saturday, according to NSW Health
Makeshift beds at the Spedali Civili hospital in Brescia, Italy on March 13. Italy's hospitals have been overwhelmed by just over 21,000 coronavirus cases
Professor MacIntyre said people would have to prepare themselves mentally to change the way they live their lives.
Those in denial who think they are still going on planned holidays would need to consider cancelling travel.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced on Sunday a 30-day ban on cruise ships and compulsory 14-day isolation periods for everyone arriving in Australia.
He stopped short of closing schools but said social distancing would be increased.
Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said authorities may conduct localise lockdowns in hotspot suburbs as seen in South Korea and Italy, The Australian reported on Sunday.
Professor MacIntyre had earlier warned that Australia could be hit harder than China by the deadly virus due to its aged population.
'The disease is clearly more severe the older you get,' she told Daily Mail Australia in February.
'So we would see proportionately more severe disease because we have more older people than China does.'
