Australians are being officially advised to reconsider their need to travel to China as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

Key points: Smarttraveller has updated its advice for China to "reconsider your need to travel" due to the coronavirus outbreak

Smarttraveller has updated its advice for China to "reconsider your need to travel" due to the coronavirus outbreak People are urged not to travel to Hubei province where the outbreak originated under any circumstances

People are urged not to travel to Hubei province where the outbreak originated under any circumstances Meanwhile, children who have returned from China in the past two weeks are being asked to stay home from school in NSW

Early on Wednesday morning, government travel website Smarttraveller updated its travel advice for China from "exercise normal safety precautions" to "reconsider your need to travel".

Foreign Minister Marise Payne warned Australians should not travel to the epicentre of the outbreak, Hubei province, under any circumstances.

"Due to the outbreak of novel coronavirus we now advise you 'reconsider your need to travel' to China overall and 'do not travel' to Hubei Province," the Smarttraveller advice read.

"Chinese authorities have restricted travel for parts of the country and may extend these restrictions at short notice.

"Travellers may be quarantined, due to their health condition or previous location."

Loading

The updated advice mirrors a raft of similar travel advisories from other countries, including the United States, which earlier recommended people avoid non-essential travel to any part of China.

Meanwhile, children who have returned to Australia from China in the past two weeks will be asked to stay away from NSW schools, due to concerns over the potential spread of the novel coronavirus.

Students are due to return to government schools — primary schools, secondary schools, TAFE and pre-schools — for the first day of term one on Wednesday.

The NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard and Education Minister Sarah Mitchell say while the risk of the virus spreading is low, they are acting as a precaution given the incubation period can be up to 14 days.

Parents will be asked — but not required — to keep their children home from school if they have been in China in the past two weeks.

Coronavirus has killed 106 people and infected 4,000 globally — four of Australia's five confirmed cases are in NSW.

"This is one of those really difficult times when elected officials have to weigh up all the evidence and this has not been easy," Mr Hazzard said.

"We're going to ask parents, I stress 'ask those parents', to do what everybody else has been doing so well in this difficult time.

"That is to support the community by holding back your children from going to each one of those facilities."Secretary of the NSW Department of Education Mark Scott said the advice will apply to Catholic and independent schools.

"We expect that very quickly our communities will engage with this request that's been made of them [on Tuesday] afternoon as well," Mr Scott said.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard urged people with symptoms to visit hospitals. ( AAP: Joel Carrett )

Concerned Chinese-Australians

The announcement comes as concerned members of the Chinese-Australia community urged the State Government to take extra steps to prevent the spread of the virus in schools.

Two online petitions asking the Government to quarantine pupils who visited China during the school holidays have gathered thousands of signatures and are being circulated on social media platform WeChat.

Some Chinese-Australian parents have labelled the Federal and NSW Government's response to the outbreak as inadequate and called for airline passengers arriving from China to be isolated for two weeks.

The petition also comes as a Sydney council announced it would be delaying Lunar New Year celebrations in light of the virus outbreak.

Some private schools in Sydney have already contacted parents saying children who have been to China would need a doctor's certificate before returning to classes.

Wuhan in the central Chinese province of Hubei, ground-zero for the outbreak, has been locked down. ( Supplied )

The main petition already has more than 17,000 signatures, and calls for students to be isolated at home for two weeks prior to returning to school.

"The fact that a vast amount of Chinese residents are returning to Australia prior to school start next week is highly concerning to all the children and staff amongst all Australian schools," the blurb on the Change.org petition read.

Another petition which has attracted more than 2,100 signatures has singled out Hurstville Public School in south Sydney.

As well as calling for the school term to be delayed, it said the NSW Department of Education should provide face masks and hand sanitiser for teachers and students.

The petition's organiser Gemma Liu claimed at least 90 per cent of the school's students had a "strong Chinese ethnic" background.

The State Government confirmed students who had been in contact with a person confirmed as having coronavirus must not attend school or childcare for 14 days after the last contact with the infected person.

It said students who had travelled to Hubei Province, including Wuhan, during the school holidays could return to school, but that they should be monitored for symptoms.

Panic and misinformation on social media

One of the petitions circulating on WeChat was shared with a message saying Australian schools weren't taking the virus seriously.

"The Chairman [Xi Jinping] has warned the Chinese that the disease would spread faster," it said.

"I only have two daughters. I can't take the risk to lose them."

A WeChat conversation encouraging people to sign a petition. ( Supplied: WeChat )

Ronnie Wang, from Sydney-based network Asian Women at Work, said she had been inundated with phone calls and social media posts from worried families.

"There is a lot of information on WeChat because parents are very, very concerned, especially [about] those who are contagious but not showing symptoms," she said.

Amid the virus panic, misinformation about how the disease has contaminated popular Asian foods and snacks has been shared on social media, including by Sydney childcare centres.

A post falsely claimed fortune cookies, wagyu beef, mi goreng noodles and Lipton peach iced tea had traces of the virus and that the "Bureau of Diseasology Parramatta" had found positive cases of the virus at Sydney train stations.

"There is no such entity as the 'Department of Diseasology Parramatta'," a NSW Health spokesperson said.

"And there have been no 'positive readings' at train stations."

On Monday, several private schools — including The Scots College and Kambala School — contacted parents and asked them to make sure their children had been cleared by a doctor before returning to school if they had been to China.

Scots College said it also cancelled the Chinese New Year celebrations scheduled for January 31 "as a precautionary measure".

"For public schools they are not telling students to stay home," Ms Wang said.

"Many people feel the response from the Federal and NSW Government has been too weak, and more measures are need to stop the spread of the virus."

Ms Wang said parts of the Chinese community in Sydney even want all airline passengers arriving from China isolated for a fortnight.

The fears around the virus spreading have also caused the City of Ryde to delay its Lunar New Year celebrations which were scheduled to be held on February 8.

In Melbourne, the Xin Jin Shan Chinese Language and Culture School postponed the start of the school year due to concerns about the outbreak.