LATE on Sunday, Australia had fewer than 4000 of a global total of 666,200 COVID-19 cases, according to the Johns Hopkins University online dashboard that has become the de facto official scorecard of the pandemic.
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The US, with more than 124,000 cases, tops the chart, with Australia in 18th position.
The US has 330 million people to our 25 million, but its infection rate of one case for every 2600 Americans is more than twice Australia's one-in-6300 or so. At this point.
There is good reason to hope Australia's experience will not mirror America's.
To start with, despite the now obviously ill-advised decisions around disembarking cruise ships, Australia's response has been quick and relatively uniform, certainly when compared with the US, where various states are at policy war with the Trump administration over handling the onslaught of US cases.
Should numbers explode here, our public health system appears to be about as well prepared as it could be.
Late last week, medical and nursing staff at John Hunter Hospital were briefed on the potential case numbers if infections continue at their present rate.
A few days earlier, Hunter New England Local Health District acknowledged statistics implying almost 75,000 cases by the end of April.
Figures from the subsequent briefing show a pathway to almost 50,000.
Either way, the numbers are enormous.
But they are only statistical predictions, and with most Australian cases still linked to overseas travel by sea or air, the sort of community infection apparently running rampant in New York and other global hot-spots is yet to take hold here.
For now, the major impact on most of us has been social and financial.
After meeting with state and territory leaders as the "national cabinet" , Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Sunday night announced further restrictions on movement, led by a limit of two people meeting in public spaces - this to be enforced by the states.
With the exception of crowds on some popular beaches, most people have already embraced the sort of social distancing and self-isolation that is the really the only tool that governments - absent a vaccine - have to work with in controlling a disease that has already taken the lives of almost 31,000 people - or a little over one in 20 diagnosed with it.
Those are not odds that anyone should chance, when death is the result of landing on the wrong number.
ISSUE: 39,566.
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