Gladys Liu (Chisholm, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health. Will the minister update the House on how the Morrison government is taking action to protect Australians' health, particularly children's, from the outbreak of the coronavirus?

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Chisholm. She has shown great leadership and strength during the course of the coronavirus outbreak. Within her community, and within the Chinese-Australian community right across the country, she's helped with communication, she's helped in providing reassurance and she's been a very important bridge to that community, which has been a task and a responsibility shared by all in this House.

Globally, what we have seen overnight is that numbers have now exceeded 90,000 cases of confirmed coronavirus around the world. We have now seen almost 3,100 lives lost sadly, including the case in Australia of Mr Kwan. As part of that we have now seen, as the Prime Minister said, 75 countries affected, including countries with their first confirmed case such as Indonesia, Portugal and Saudi Arabia. As a consequence of that, we have moved to put in place very strong protections. In particular, in relation to those protections, was the declaration by the Chief Medical Officer on 21 January—well ahead of some of the international organisations—that COVID-19, as it's now known, is a disease of human pandemic potential. In response, that has included some of the strongest border protection measures in the world, declaring on 1 February that—

Mr Husic interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Chifley!

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

that we would—

Mr Husic interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member will leave under standing order 94(a).

The member for Chifley then left the chamber.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

close the borders to non-nationals from China, but with other important steps along the way, including the closure in relation to Iran once we observed the high death rate and realised that that indicated that there was clearly a much higher unreported rate than was on the record.

Very specifically, in relation to families and children, we have been working with the states and territories closely. The COAG meeting focused on that element. Just today, the Chief Medical Officer provided the very important reassurance to families and parents that the transmissibility rate to children is low—indeed, potentially lower than the flu itself—and that the consequence when children are infected is low. It has a very low mortality rate. Many cases amongst children will be mild. I think it's important to provide this information to the community, to provide the advice of the Chief Medical Officer, the collective chief health officers across the states and territories and the international community to say to Australian families that we are taking care of you and your children are safe.