An elderly Perth man has become the first person in Australia to die from the coronavirus, while four people who recently returned from Iran have been confirmed as the latest to test positive for the disease.
James Kwan, 78, contracted the virus on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan.
He died at Perth’s Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital on Sunday morning after being transferred there from a quarantine facility at Howard Springs in the Northern Territory.
So far Australia has recorded 28 infections, and federal Health Minister Greg Hunt has warned more cases are “almost inevitable”.
Worldwide there are more than 88,000 cases, with more than 3000 deaths reported as outbreaks in the hotspots of China, Iran, Italy and South Korea continue to grow.
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton insisted on Monday that he trusts advice from the World Health Organisation, which is yet to declare a pandemic.
But he said Australia was also leaning on its intelligence agencies and allies to get the “true picture”.
“There’s a lot of work that we’ve done with our Five Eyes partners – with the United States, and the United Kingdom in particular,” he told Sky News on Monday.
“And we work very closely with our intelligence community as well to look at the true picture of what’s going on. There is uncertainty around some of the numbers.”
Australia’s deputy chief medical officer Paul Kelly has warned that as cases rise, so too will deaths, but people should remember 80 per cent of cases are relatively mild.
Four new virus cases were confirmed on the weekend involving people who had returned to Australia from Iran, before a ban on foreign nationals arriving from there was issued.
Mr Dutton said the Iran ban was sparked by concern about how quickly the country went from zero to many, many cases, and the number of deaths, which now number more than 50.
He defended not doing the same for South Korea, Japan or Italy, which now has about 1700 cases – half of them confirmed in the past 24 hours.
“You get to a position where you just can’t contain that by closing borders, or closing routes from particular countries. That’s the stage we’re at at the moment,” Mr Dutton told Sky.
“We can’t just close down every flight, every movement across our borders. We need to be realistic about the fact we’re a trading nation.”
NSW Health confirmed the state’s fifth and six cases after a man in his 40s and a woman in her 50s returned separately to Sydney from Iran.
The woman flew back to Sydney via Qatar, arriving on Sunday February 23 on Qatar Airways Flight QR 908.
She developed symptoms the following day and her illness was confirmed on February 29.
The man diagnosed with COVID-19 arrived in Sydney from Iran on February 22 but did not show any symptoms until two days later and was taken to hospital.
Authorities are asking anyone on the flights to seek an immediate health assessment if they develop any flu-like symptoms.
Meanwhile, new cases in Victoria and Queensland were also people who had travelled from Iran.
A Victorian woman was confirmed as testing positive on Sunday after landing in Melbourne on Friday.
In Queensland, a 63-year-old Gold Coast beautician was confirmed as having the virus on Saturday after she arrived on Monday a week ago.
AAP
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