The directions issued by Dr Brett Sutton, took effect on 7 April 2020 and were updated on 13 April 2020.
Testing criteria for COVID-19 has been expanded to include all people with consistent clinical symptoms. However, clinicians are being advised “to only test patients who meet the clinical testing criteria”. These include (apart from people with symptoms consistent with COVID-19, close contacts of those already diagnosed, or who have returned from overseas in the last 14 days):
· Fever or chills (in the absence of all alternative diagnosis)
· Acute respiratory infection, characterized by cough, sore throat, or shortness of breath.
While health care workers will have their tests dealt with as urgent, it remains to be seen whether the limited testing criteria would be able to restrict the development of community spread of the virus.