Health authorities are warning that restrictions designed to slow the spread of coronavirus won't be lifted any time soon, despite the ACT recording no new cases of COVID-19 on Monday.
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Acting ACT Chief Health Officer Vanessa Johnston said the territory had realised the "best case scenario" in the early stages of the fight against the virus in the nation's capital.
But both she and Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith have warned against complacency seeping into the community, imploring Canberrans to continue adhering to the social-distancing rules which they say have so far proven effective in slowing the virus' spread.
The message came as the government rolled out random testing of coronavirus at the EPIC drive-through clinic, Weston Creek walk-in centre and Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health Service, as it searches for any traces of community transmission of the virus.
Monday marked the first time since March 17 that the ACT had recorded no new cases of coronavirus in a 24-hour period.
There have been 96 confirmed cases of the virus in the ACT, 40 of which have recovered. Seven people are being treated in hospital, including three in intensive care.
Just over 100 new cases were recorded nationwide on Monday - the lowest daily increase in a fortnight.
Ms Stephen-Smith was asked on Monday if the recent reduction in new cases in the ACT and interstate was a indication that the fight against the virus might be over far sooner than expected.
She responded emphatically and said: "No, quite the opposite".
She said the more successful the attempts were to slow the virus' spread - now commonly referred to as "flattening the curve" - the greater the length of time the community would be dealing with it.
"That's where we want to be. We want to be in a situation where the health system can cope," Ms Stephen-Smith said.
"We are really trying to avoid some of the terrible scenes that we have seen overseas where hospitals have been overwhelmed and clinicians having to make very difficult decisions about who receives care and who doesn't.
"We want to ensure that everyone who needs intensive care is able to access it."
Dr Johnston warned that relaxing social-distancing rules - which now include a ban on gatherings of more than two people - would trigger an "uptick in cases".
She said slowing the virus' spread was essential in buying the health system the time it needed to prepare for a potential influx of patients.
Preparations included shoring up supply of personal protection equipment for frontline workers and boosting resources for contact tracing.
The ACT government is now conducting random coronavirus tests on people who experience symptoms but don't otherwise fit the testing criteria. Authorities are looking for undetected cases in high-risk areas such as the healthcare and aged care sectors.
Asked why the government wasn't committing to testing anyone who presented with flu-like symptoms, Ms Stephen-Smith said it simply didn't have the resources.
"We don't have the capacity to test everybody, so we do need to target our testing towards those people who are most likely to come into contact with coronavirus," she said.
"And then [we do] a sampling of the community ... to see if we have community transmission.
"It would not be a good use of our testing resources [to try and test the whole community], which are not limitless."
There are two cases of coronavirus in the ACT where authorities have not determined how the patient contracted the virus.
Dr Johnston said authorities were still investigating how a man in his 80s who died from coronavirus contracted COVID-19.
The man was the father-in-law of federal Labor MP Ged Kearney. In a tribute on Facebook over the weekend, Ms Kearney said the man had barely left his home in the month before he died, raising questions about how he became infected.
On Monday, Dr Johnston described the case as "concerning". She said authorities had gone to "great lengths to get to the bottom" of the cause of infection.
She said the results of tests on members of the community were still pending, and didn't expect to be able to provide an answer until later this week.
- For information on COVID-19, please go to the ACT Health website or the federal Health Department's website.
- You can also call the Coronavirus Health Information Line on 1800 020 080
- If you have serious symptoms, such as difficulty breathing, call Triple Zero (000)
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Dan Jervis-Bardy
Dan covers federal politics from Parliament House, with a special focus on climate policy and the NDIS. He has previously reported on ACT politics and urban affairs since joining the Canberra Times in 2018.
Dan covers federal politics from Parliament House, with a special focus on climate policy and the NDIS. He has previously reported on ACT politics and urban affairs since joining the Canberra Times in 2018.
