Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said he is “very worried” about the significant rise in coronavirus cases in Australia over the last few days.

“It is a very, very steep growth and it is very concerning,” he said.

“Still, a significant proportion of those new cases are returned travellers or contacts of returned travellers.

“I want to emphasise again that we are really serious now about a return traveller. You leave the airport, you go home and stay there for 14 days and the states and territories will be checking on you.

“We will not tolerate anybody putting the community at risk as a returned traveller.

People coming back from some countries – you know which ones they are – have a high risk now of carrying the coronavirus and they are the people who’ve largely led to the spread of the virus in our community over the recent weeks.”

Picture: Lukas Coch/AAP

Dr Murphy added that people who have been in contact with a person diagnosed with the virus and told to isolate for 14 days must do so.

“You must not go to the chemist when you are told you have got the disease,” he said.

“Some people are being told they are a positive case and going into the chemist or the supermarket on the way home.”

Dr Murphy said that people need to adhere to social distancing recommendations, saying that everyone will need to change the way they interact with others for “quite a long time”.

“This virus will be with us for some time. We have to all think about avoiding any unnecessary interactions where you are close to someone and could place them at risk,” he said.

“These measures are really draconian. We know that. But if we’re going to control community transmission, we have to stop the capacity of this virus from spreading from person to person.

“And I have said many times, it is a long haul and that is why we are keen to keep society functioning but keep society safe.”