As at 31st of March 2020, Australia’s death toll stands at 19, after a second person died in Tasmania. An elderly man died at Royal Hobart Hospital overnight. As of 6.30am today, there were 4359 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia, up from 266 yesterday. More than 230,000 tests have been conducted across Australia.
At the moment, the case fatality rate is around 0.4%, while the mortality rate is slightly less than 0.000001 % (less than one death every million people). The prevalence of the COVID-19 on the tested population is around 1.9%, while the prevalence of the disease among the total Australian population is about 0.0002% (one case every 5.250 people).
The majority of Australian confirmed cases acquired their infection overseas, including on board cruise ships or associated with recent travel to Europe or the Americas.
Government response to the COVID-19 outbreak
New normal’ under stage 3 restrictions
What will attract a fine:
- Breaching 14-day quarantine
- Organising or attending gatherings of more than 500 outdoors or 100 people indoors (exceptions for shops, schools, public transport)
- Playing sport with more than two people who do not live together, including golf, bike riding, football, running cricket and netball.
- Real estate auctions
- Weddings with more than five people, funerals with more than 10 people
- Hanging out at the beach
- House parties
- Play dates
- Barbecues
- Non-essential travel, excluding trips to your own holiday houses
- Leaving your home for any non-essential purpose. Australians face fines of $1652 if they leave the house for “non-essential reasons” or breach the two-person limit on gatherings with people outside your household. There are only four reasons to go out: medical care and care giving; exercise; food and supplies that you need; work and education if necessary.
- Businesses face fines of $9913 for breaching the rules. A bar in Fitzroy, where police found six staff working and two customers drinking alcohol on Saturday night, was the first business to be fined in Victoria.
- Getting closer than 1.5 metres to another person
- Buy guns or ammunition
- Major bottle shops have limited the amount of alcohol Australians can buy in one transaction to two slabs of beer or cider and 12 bottles of wine, among other restrictions.
“Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or you’re an idiot, you’re quite clear the restrictions are there,”
Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton said this morning.
As clearly shown by the table below, the transmission curve is already flattering, and the number of new cases dropped dramatically after only ten days from the start of the restrictions. This means that the actions put in place by the Government proved to be effective.
