House debates

Tuesday, 25 August 2020

Questions without Notice

Covid-19

2:37 pm

Photo of Greg HuntGreg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

We have seen a 1,000 per cent growth in cases in one state. No other state has had more than 25 per cent growth over the course of the last three months. But what we have done as a country—when we look around the world at those figures—is we have seen a containment strategy based on borders, with 94,000 people that have been through the hotel quarantine program and 2,269 positive cases that have been detected and prevented, through that hotel quarantine program, from escaping into the community. In seven out of eight states and territories, it has worked remarkably well. We know the tragic consequences in one.

We have done 5.8 million tests. It is one of the world's leading testing programs, according to the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. With tracing, seven out of eight states and territories have had an extraordinary response, and the difference between Victoria and New South Wales has been the public health units' tracing program. It has prevented an outbreak on a catastrophic scale. Distancing has also been used to protect. All these things have come together to protect Australia. Where two of those elements have not been in place, sadly we have seen tragedies in Victoria.

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