Flattening the curve: Why mass gatherings are being cancelled in Australia

Federal, state and territory governments have advised against non-essential gatherings of more than 500 people from Monday.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the aim was to slow the rate of transmission, not to stop it.

Over the past few days the term "flatten the curve" has been tossed around online. It refers to an epidemic graph, which is a chart used in epidemiology to visualise the onset of an outbreak.

It is a simple curve graph with the Y-axis showing the number of cases and the X-axis showing the time since the first case.

There is a dotted line that shows the health care system's capacity.

The goal is the keep the curve below the line to ensure a virus is spreading at a slower pace and to ensure the health care system is not overwhelmed.

Flattening the curve is to do with slowing the spread, not completely stopping it.

To keep the curve below the line, health professionals have recommended a range of measures from washing your hands to going into social isolation if you have symptoms.

As of Friday there are 156 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia - a small portion of the country's population of 25 million.

When Prime Minister Scott Morrison made the announcement on the public gatherings on Friday afternoon he said the measures were "precautionary".

"It is getting ahead of this to ensure that we can minimise the impact on your health and we can ensure with confidence the ability for people to be accessing the health services that they and their families will need," he said.

On Friday morning, a number of doctors and other health professionals said public events and mass gatherings should be cancelled.

Among those was Australian Medical Association ACT president Antonio Di Dio who told ABC Radio Canberra people should avoid events.

He suggested the health system would be better prepared if people diagnosed with the virus came in trickles and not waves.

"We might get the same number of cases but if the caseload is slow and evolves over weeks and instead of an explosion over the next couple of days," Dr Di Dio said.

"The health care facilities are much more likely to be able to cope on an individual case-by-case basis and the actual severity of the illness."

Three weeks ago, Italy had the same number of cases as Australia did on Friday but that has since ballooned to more than 13,000, as of Friday.

Social distancing could be not shaking hands or it could be going into isolation.

Many countries have closed schools and workplaces. Other companies have encouraged people to work from home.

While the government has confirmed it would not close schools, university lectures or public transport, those who are unwell are of course encouraged to stay away.

The cancellation of mass gatherings is also part of this.

As well as these pools, galleries, bars, nightclubs and parks could be closed.

But people have also been told to practice these measures to some degrees without formal bans or cancellations.

This is about all for one, one for all, according to Australian Catholic University philosopher associate professor Stephanie Collins.

Dr Collins said when there is a large scale social problem, such as the COVID-19 outbreak, individuals needed look at the collective when determining the best response.

"The big problem there is what it seems rational to do as an individual is not actually your part or your share in the overall pattern of collective action that we need to see in order to solve some pressing problem," she said.

Dr Collins said if all individuals were flippant in their response to social distancing, in the wake of the coronavirus, then it would spread at a faster pace.

"Avoiding enclosed public spaces where there is a lot of people, public transport, crowded bars and club and avoiding hugging and hand shaking and staying one-metre away from other people... those latter things at the moment seem to be pretty much what everyone should be doing," she said.

"Even though for us it can feel like one hug or one night out dancing is beneficial [and] is not going to have any large effects but it's the thought of if everyone thinks that way then the rates of coronavirus are going to increase exponentially."

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