Not mine, unfortunately......

PM Scott Morrison has announced there's no need for Australia to take action against the corona virus. He said "We make up only 0.3% of the world's population. Even if we're all wiped out by the virus it will make no appreciable impact on the world's population"

Fortunately you mean,

the misquote is shocking.   Let me guess it was some rabid  green  lefty?

And you call us 'snowflakes'

Situation getting worse.

Asia going to close borders ?

Australia already has numerous quarantine areas, likely thousands of them, and for something microbiological for example we probably have certainly in the tens, possibly a hundred sites already set up.

Years ago I toured both HIFAR and OPAL which must have made it late 06, or maybe earlier. There are several special areas within the Lucas Heights complex that are absolutely off limits to effectively everyone. I was travelling with the minister for science and defence and not even he was allowed in. The rooms are specialist microbiological containment areas and other associated quarantine facilities that exist for exactly a need like a large uncontained outbreak.

ANU has similar, (I was allowed in those and that without working for the government) as I am sure do many existing hospitals and universities.

Agree we have some systems in place, but it will get down to the numbers and I would not write off the govt building a tent hospitals on islands in the water ways of our major capitals as has happened in the past such as i think the Spanish Flu and Leprosy outbreaks.

China is one country that the govt can quickly act and mobilise an army to "lockdown" a break out location due to the size of its standing military and draconian govt, could Australia manage to replicate this?

Yes, we would easily be able to handle the security of large scale quarantine facilities.

I doubt that using islands in rivers would be considered these days. A fence is far more secure than a coastline.

I remember when swine flu was a major health crisis back in my primary school days and anytime anyone would cough the whole class would say - you have swine flu - all thanks to the excessive media hype surrounding the latest number of confirmed cases, death tolls, government precautions, mask sellouts, etc. In some ways, without trying to downplay the seriousness of coronavirus, i am getting a sense of deja vu here.

Kong Kong has stopped rail and ferry traffic to and from China.

https://www.railpage.com.au/news/s/hong-kong-suspends-rail-and-ferry-links-with-china-as-virus-spreads

There would be insufficient space in our large public hospitals to deal with not only this, but other more severe contagions. What happens at present, is that during the cooler months, there is an influx of severe flu sufferers, they get lumped into any hospital wards with isolation rooms, and the regular patients, e.g. renal, blood cancer etc get pushed out into other wards. The trouble is, there are not enough rooms. We need purpose built facilities or other public facilities as people have posted above, that are readily wired and plumbed and can be repurposed at short notice. There are some private hospitals with ghost wards, and they could also fill that void.

If we did evacuate our citizens from Wuhan or other parts in China, it would have been ideal to fly them into Watson, have a makeshift (better still, purpose built) medical centre and accommodation for processing and identifying potential cases allowing for incubation, and then releasing them into the general community if given the all clear. No island to escape from, just harsh desert.

If we did evacuate our citizens from Wuhan or other parts in China, it would have been ideal to fly them into Watson, have a makeshift (better still, purpose built) medical centre and accommodation for processing and identifying potential cases allowing for incubation, and then releasing them into the general community if given the all clear. No island to escape from, just harsh desert.

This sounds a little like a novel I am reading at the moment called cold storage.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43229556-cold-storage

There would be insufficient space in our large public hospitals to deal with not only this, but other more severe contagions. What happens at present, is that during the cooler months, there is an influx of severe flu sufferers, they get lumped into any hospital wards with isolation rooms, and the regular patients, e.g. renal, blood cancer etc get pushed out into other wards. The trouble is, there are not enough rooms. We need purpose built facilities or other public facilities as people have posted above, that are readily wired and plumbed and can be repurposed at short notice. There are some private hospitals with ghost wards, and they could also fill that void.

If we did evacuate our citizens from Wuhan or other parts in China, it would have been ideal to fly them into Watson, have a makeshift (better still, purpose built) medical centre and accommodation for processing and identifying potential cases allowing for incubation, and then releasing them into the general community if given the all clear. No island to escape from, just harsh desert.

Nothing is new. A similar thing happened with westbound passengers on the TAR during the Spanish flu of 1918/1919. In those days, of course, WA could easily be isolated simply by stopping shipping and the Trans.

Australia is an island... it being one didn’t prevent the virus arriving here. Parking the infected on an island won’t prevent the virus leaving there.

Contained facilities are the way to go. Wuhan might be building a hospital in a hurry, but a tent hospital for an aerosol borne virus is going to be hard to sanitise.

Facilities like I described at Lucas Heights make sense, the atmosphere is scrubbable (which is generally not true, even for hospitals), near everything in there is able to be sanitised without too much difficulty and in terms of sanitation/sterilisation there is quite literally the largest source of neutrons (ie gamma radiation) in the nation right there...

Existing facilities that maintain other general use already have their own staff, kitchens, and security, some purpose built facility is going to need all of that too just sitting about for effectively 100% of the time with no use.

Don't we have an empty immigration centre in the  middle of SA somewhere that could be converted if necessary?

Don't we have an empty immigration centre in the  middle of SA somewhere that could be converted if necessary?

There are a lot of empty (or near empty) rural towns that could be repurposed! Just sayin'

Donald, you might be referring to Woomera.

Donald, the government have just announced they are going to evacuate Australians from Wuhan to quarantine on Christmas Island - I think there might have been better options, but this is a government decision so likely not the best.

Donald, the government have just announced they are going to evacuate Australians from Wuhan to quarantine on Christmas Island - I think there might have been better options, but this is a government decision so likely not the best.

Probably a good idea.  SBS should film it and create a new series of "Go Back to Where you Came From" so more Aussies can experience for themselves the reality of what it's like to be an asylum seeker...

Don't we have an empty immigration centre in the  middle of SA somewhere that could be converted if necessary?

There are a lot of empty (or near empty) rural towns that could be repurposed! Just sayin'

What, you mean like Wittenoom?

Carnot, possibly, it would be a good sequel to ‘Is Indonesia a dangerous country one needs to seek asylum from?’ That should gain some viewers.

Donald, the government have just announced they are going to evacuate Australians from Wuhan to quarantine on Christmas Island - I think there might have been better options, but this is a government decision so likely not the best.

Politically convenient, how much coin did we fork out to reopen the centre, just in case?

University in Melbourne now suspending exams due to the risk of getting together.

Melbourne establishment has isolated the virus and can now look to making a vaccine.

Where will it end?

I wonder how the citizens of Christmas Island feel about a Coronavirus wafting in the air.

Should anyone returning from overseas, from any country, be sending their kids to school? Is there a serious risk that they were exposed to the virus by crossing paths from those that were in Wuhan?

Are the Chinese telling the whole story? I.e. about the cause, onset, and extent of the outbreak?

Bevans, I will be reading Cold Storage (and maybe I will move to Watson).

ANR once again, because you’ve missed it yet again. Having the ill maintained within a building or facility will provide more containment than ‘distance’ which is uncontained.

The building is the containment, and it will not matter to residents whether infected people or (more likely) just those taken as a precaution are there - there will be no ‘wafting’ virus.

Looks as if it is worse than we were led to believe... Uni of Hong Kong estimate of infected people may be more accurate.

Christmas Island will be one busy place.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/coronavirus-outbreak-what-is-an-r0-and-why-is-it-so-important/news-story/27054a834bafc405f69d04d1b4c2742c

Gosh, the Chinese don't muck about when building new hospitals Thanks for the the updates everyone.

ANR once again, because you’ve missed it yet again. Having the ill maintained within a building or facility will provide more containment than ‘distance’ which is uncontained.

The building is the containment, and it will not matter to residents whether infected people or (more likely) just those taken as a precaution are there - there will be no ‘wafting’ virus.

The closed air facilities available in Australia today will no where near enough if this gets out of hand. Taking over hospitals in the cities has its own issues. They will if required resort to forced geographic isolation to prevent people escaping to make security easier and risk of spreading less.

Listening on the radio this morning a few posts on local chat groups by expat Ozzies, the call is already out for China to import surgical masks, yet they are the main supplier to the world. One lady here, her company has been asked to find 1m masks. The masks available in the shops are being hoarded in many country;s not even affected by the virus and govt agencies are locking down supplies they have.

As the virus has up to a 14 day lag before showing systems, all the efforts being put in place now will take time to materialise and they are now forecasting up to 6 digits may be infected with a minimum of 6% fatality rate, minimum because most of the people who have been infected have not had it long enough to die from the virus.

I think by the weekend we will see most of the world close direct air traffic to China, or at least airlines do it themselves due to lack of customers and/or air crew refusing to fly there and the Chinese New Year holiday extended to mid February.

Heat map of the spread.

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6