Fourth coronavirus case in NSW now in the clear

13 February 2020

NSW Health has confirmed all four patients diagnosed with novel coronavirus(COVID-19) in NSW have now been discharged from hospital.

Executive Director Health Protection NSW, Dr Jeremy McAnulty said the outcome follows the State’s recent breakthrough where NSW Health Pathology scientists cultivated the virus, and confirms NSW is addressing the global issue well.

“This is terrific news for the patients, clinicians, researchers and the NSW community, and we should applaud the efforts of everyone involved,” Dr McAnulty said. “NSW Health is extremely proud of its medical response to date with prompt, expert care to all patients, a comprehensive screening program and extensive information campaign.”

Following the COVID-19 outbreak emerged in Wuhan, NSW Health initiated an immediate, statewide medical response, with extensive follow-up of close contacts of confirmed cases and a comprehensive screening program at Sydney International Airport.

The NSW Health response to COVID-19 is part of an existing framework for managing emerging infectious diseases, including pandemic influenza, SARS and MERS in the past, which has been refined over many years. In addition to the immediate public information response and medical effort, NSW Health launched the broad-scale public information campaign, “Find the Facts”.

“Through the NSW Health website and more broadly, we have provided comprehensive and informative advice in multiple languages to communities across NSW,” Dr McAnulty said.

“I’d particularly like to acknowledge the work of the Chinese community, who have worked hard to communicate the facts to people.

“We have issued twice daily statistics updates to media, we have held 16 press conferences with front-line clinicians and epidemiologists, including dedicated briefings​ for Chinese-language press and issued almost 30 media releases.”

As of 9.30am today, a total of 883 people have been tested in NSW for COVID-19and 15,740 people have been screened at Sydney International Airport since 2February 2020.

COVID-19 is a notifiable disease under the Public Health Act 2010. Under this requirement, doctors and laboratories must report any suspected cases to NSW Health.