UON Interim Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) Liz Burd said the institution has been working as part of its "standard operating procedure" for around a month on a "pandemic plan", based on how it responded to other illnesses including swine flu, but modified to reflect advice about Coronavirus.

"The plan has a number of phases to it and when a pandemic is declared it changes the nature of the way you respond in certain circumstances," Professor Burd said.

"So what we've been in the process of doing is starting to make sure our processes are ready to go should we need to do that.

"This is preventative, this is not an end of the world scenario - we need to make sure people are prepared but not panicking.

"It's incredibly detailed in terms of what you would do if you had someone with the infection in the institution and how we manage that.

"It would also include if there became so many cases we believed there were risks of holding particularly large group events and things like that."

Professor Burd said Singapore - where UON has a campus - had recently restricted gatherings to no more than 50 people.

She said UON had broken classes into smaller groups and changed staff rosters to limit the risk of transmitting the virus.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Thursday the government had activated its Coronavirus Emergency Response Plan.

"While the WHO is yet to declare the nature of the coronavirus and it's moved towards a pandemic phase, we believe that the risk of a global pandemic is very much upon us and as a result, as a government, we need to take the steps necessary to prepare for such a pandemic," he said.

"The actions we're now taking in being prepared even further is to ensure that we can respond immediately when the virus moves to the next level."

Professor Burd said she was confident UON too had "put in enough of the background work to make sure we are prepared".

She said UON was constantly refining its plan as new public health information emerged, such as confirmation that the virus is spread through droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes, rather than breathing.

"So one of the approaches we're now looking at and are in the process of enacting is making sure our common and highly used areas are cleaned more often than we would have normally done."

Around half of UON's 2000 Chinese students are still overseas.

UON has said students enrolled in trimester one can study remotely and if they don't pass, can enrol again without academic or financial penalty.

Students enrolled in semester one can start their studies after the April mid-semester break and progress in time for semester two.

They will be able to access work online and will be given, after they arrive, extra tuition and time for assessments and study.

Professor Burd said the majority of the 1000 affected students had taken up this flexible option, aside from 16 in Wuhan who took a suggested leave of absence and four who had withdrawn.

She said UON hadn't ruled out offering fee discounts or assistance to students if rolling travel bans pushed arrival times beyond April.

She said while Melbourne University had offered Chinese students a $7500 grant, its fees were double UON's.

"We have not yet finalised what offers we'd make simply because there's still so much time in order to bring them here," she said.

"What we're looking at is putting our investment into making sure we have better ways of supporting them."

This includes counselling, plus keeping some rooms at Callaghan campus empty for students who had pre-booked accommodation - as well as those who would find it "problematic to conduct a suitable isolation period elsewhere in the community".

"We're looking at the most effective way of reintroducing students at the point of time they come, but that's something a little way down the line we now know," she said.

"That isn't the most pressing matter we've been dealing with at the moment, other than being able to assure people that 'When you can come there will be a room for you', which of course is part of the stress reduction strategies we're using at the moment."

She said UON was "working with public health" on the idea "and they've reviewed our procedures".

"We're going back and are making some minor enhancements to that and we will make sure we're completely consistent with that," she said.

"When we get to the point where any of those students are coming back and needing an isolation period we will work with the other communities so they understand what the challenges are."

Professor Burd said she understood the Group of Eight universities had discussed chartering flights once the ban lifts to bring students to Australia.

She said while this wasn't currently necessary because airlines have capacity on their standard routes, there would be significant in-bound demand as soon as the ban ends.

She said she supported staggered reintroduction of students.

"We would have to make sure that whatever approach we use was a sensible approach in terms of financial sustainability and environmental sustainability," she said.

"I would would want to seek a solution that worked for all of those factors and was the most sensible approach for students and Newcastle."

While UON has a smaller number of international students than other institutions, the withdrawal of just one is equal to a loss of about $30,000 in annual fees.

"We model everything," she said.

"We do run at a surplus and we're perhaps not as exposed as other institutions that it's going to make a disastrous short term impact on this institution.

"I'm more worried at this point in time about the cultural impact this has had. One of the important things is to demonstrate to our Chinese community members that we are deeply sorry that they are impacted by this and our sympathy goes out to them.

"It always seems crass to talk about it from the financial point of view.

"We will, of course, look where we can to make sure we don't spend funds where we don't have to spend them, to make sure we accommodate for any loss of income."

Professor Burd said there hadn't been any significant reductions in staff hours.

She said 450 undergraduate courses had Chinese students overseas, but for 50 per cent of courses it was only one student.

She said there were plans to increase staffing levels to respond to a 50 per cent increase in queries compared to previous years.

She said UON were "used to scaling up and scaling down" its number of English language class educators, which reflected student numbers.

"The one group in January was already here so we've taught them in the normal way, the next group we have half a group here and have half a group online," she said.

"So that's been a challenge for some of the tutors to work out how to communicate with those online and they've moved into telebased classes. Come the March group they will move completely online."

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