Australia first notified about COVID-19 on Jan 1

Australian health authorities were first notified of the Wuhan cluster coronavirus by the World Health Organisation on January 1, Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy has revealed. Under questioning by the Senate inquiry into the government’s response to COVID-19, Mr Murphy outlined the timeline of the coronavirus crisis. Mr Murphy said the Health Department was monitoring the outbreak as it usually would in cases of zoonotic infections but conceded there was not a high level of international concern until January 19 when human-to-human transmission was confirmed. “There was clear evidence coming from China that there was significant human to human transmission which was a game changer,” he said. “That is when we activated (incident room) and started meetings daily with the principal committee which is our national committee comprising of all chief medical officers, expert advice and we set up a working group with what we call our communal diseases network and we started discussing with international counterparts. "We were in an active response mode and declared this a listed human disease under the biosecurity act a few days later." Via news.com.au — Australia’s #1 news site https://www.news.com.au