A 50/50 shared funding agreement has been reached between the Commonwealth and State and Territory Governments to ensure a rapid health response to the evolving COVID-19 outbreak, the Prime Minister has announced.
Scott Morrison said the Federal Government would pay 50 per cent of additional costs incurred by State health services as a result of the diagnosis and treatment of patients with COVID-19, those suspected of having the virus or activities to prevent the spread of it.
Mr Morrison said that under the proposed agreement, an immediate $100 million advance payment would be delivered, on a population basis, to support states and territories.
Chief Health Officer at NSW Health, Kerry Chant said NSW emergency departments were continuing to see increased numbers of patients presenting, above seasonal averages.
“Presentations for influenza-like illnesses are well above historic averages, as are those for other types of respiratory illnesses,” Dr Chant said.
“There is no indication that these presentation[s] have coronavirus, and most likely reflect patients with summer influenza and patients seeking testing for coronavirus,” she said.
“It is timely to remind the community that emergency departments are for emergencies.”
Dr Chant said the majority of new COVID-19 cases could be traced to existing cases.
“This is reassuring as it means we are tracking how COVID-19 has been transmitted and in general we are not seeing random cases occur in the community at large,” she said.
Dr Chant said health workers in NSW public hospitals and community-based GPs had been issued advice to help them identify any cases and apply careful infection control measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
