Coronavirus has begun shutting down schools and workplaces across Australia and an expert warned the situation would likely escalate as the spread of the virus intensified in coming weeks and months.

Key points: Vodafone, Clayton Utz and Cisco are some companies already impacted

Vodafone, Clayton Utz and Cisco are some companies already impacted Authorities insist essential services will remain even with staff shortages

Authorities insist essential services will remain even with staff shortages An expert says everyone should plan for what to do at work and at home

Suspected cases of COVID-19 caused staff disruptions at three Vodafone stores across Perth, which posted notices they were prematurely closing on Thursday after they were visited by a staff worker who was subsequently tested for coronavirus.

The Sydney office of one of the country's biggest law firms, Clayton Utz, sent all staff home this week, and a similar response was undertaken in the Perth office of technology firm Cisco.

Epping Boys High School in Sydney was also closed Thursday after a 16-year-old student was diagnosed with coronavirus.

Edith Cowan University disaster and emergency response Associate Professor Erin Smith said it was possible many workplaces in Australia would be empty soon, either because employees got the virus and their colleagues did not want to come to work, or they would have to look after children whose schools or childcare centres had closed.

"That's a very real possibility and we're certainly already seeing that overseas," she said.

Workplaces hit by illness and quarantine

Vodafone's national headquarters in North Sydney was shut on Thursday after an employee returned from Japan with flu-like symptoms.

A spokeswoman for Vodafone said the person had now tested negative and the headquarters would reopen on Monday.

It came as three of the company's stores in Perth were closed Thursday and staff sent home after an employee came back from Indonesia feeling unwell.

Three Vodafone shops closed in Perth and workers were sent home from its Sydney head office this week. ( AAP: Tom Compagnoni )

The stores reopened on Friday, but all staff affected were told to stay home and a fresh batch of staff were brought in to run the shops, while they waited for the employee's test results.

Technology company Cisco also temporarily closed its Perth office this week "through an abundance of caution" after an employee experienced flu-like symptoms and was being tested for COVID-19, while other staff worked from home.

Law firm Clayton Utz sent all staff home from its central Sydney offices on Thursday after management had been alerted to the fact a staff member's wife was the granddaughter of a 95-year-old woman who died after contracting COVID-19 at her northern Sydney suburbs aged care facility.

The employee's wife had recently visited her grandmother.

Increasing numbers of businesses are sending workers home due to fears of coronavirus. ( Unsplash: Benedikt Geyer )

The aged care home was not far from Epping Boys High School, which was closed on Thursday after a 16-year-old student was diagnosed with coronavirus.

His mother worked at nearby Ryde Hospital, where a 53-year-old male doctor was diagnosed with the respiratory illness.

Media giant ViacomCBS has also temporarily shut up shop in Sydney, along with French outdoor advertising company JC Decaux, after employees were potentially exposed.

"The employee worked in JC Decaux's York Street office on Monday to Wednesday of this week," the company said.

"The employee has self-isolated, is showing no symptoms and is awaiting the results of the test for the virus.

"As a precautionary measure, JC Decaux's York Street office will be closed until the results of the test come back. The business is still operating, with staff working remotely."

ViacomCBS closed its offices as a precaution after an employee was potentially exposed to the virus.

"The safety and wellbeing of staff is the company's number one priority. Therefore, as a precaution, ViacomCBS has temporarily closed its Darlinghurst office and instructed all employees to work remotely until further information is available," the company said.

Fears for workers at remote mine sites

The WA branch of the Australian Workers' Union has called for mining employees returning home from coronavirus-affected countries to be quarantined for at least two weeks to ensure other workers did not get exposed to the disease.



The union's secretary, Brad Gandy, said he contacted the major mining businesses to ensure workers were paid for their quarantined time.

The Chamber of Minerals and Energy (CME) said mining companies were well prepared and some had already introduced infectious disease managers to monitor the health of workers.

"There's definitely no suggestion that any of our members will have any problems manning any and all of their sites at all times," CME chief executive Paul Everingham said.

"I have no fears for the mining sector slowing," he said.

Need for contingency plans at home and work

Associate Professor Smith said people should not fear the possibility of work shutdowns.

"We just need to see it as a practical and logical way to stop the spread of the disease," she said.

"Look at it as saying, yes, it's a little bit of an inconvenience for us in the short term, but they're practical measures that we may need to take to try to blunt that spread of disease."

She said in workplaces where people could do their jobs from home, employers should be drafting plans now to allow them to do so if needed.

Some simple planning and preparation would provide staff an "added layer of protection" against the virus, as well as peace of mind.

"It would be good for staff morale too, employees would think 'our employer is looking after our wellbeing well before this hits'," she said.

Associate Professor Smith said it also made sense for people to prepare to be at home for some time.

"It's really good to have discussions with our family at the moment about what we might do if we needed to be quarantined at home for 14 days, for example," she said.

"[But] we certainly don't need to be rushing out and buying trolleys full of loo paper."

What if essential services staff go home?

For any society to function, there are some people who need to physically show up to work, like doctors, nurses, police officers and people who work at power and water companies.

When the ABC asked the heads of those agencies in WA what they would do to ensure they had enough staff if the virus hit hard, their overwhelming message was: "We have a plan."

But details of what each plan entailed were scant.

Western Power, the WA Government-owned corporation that supplies electricity to households, said it had a number of "scenario-based contingency plans in place" to ensure services were maintained "in the event that staffing levels could be affected by outside events".

"We also have a flexible workplace culture that allows for our workers to work remotely if needed to balance their work with unplanned family or carer needs," the utility said in a statement.

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A WA Police spokeswoman said the force had a set up a "special command structure" to respond to the coronavirus situation as it evolved.

WA Fire and Emergency Services Commissioner Darren Klemm said a 25 per cent reduction in staffing levels would not impact the ability to deliver critical services.

"We would continue to bring staff back, and so 25 per cent, I don't think is going to be a significant issue for us," he said.

"It would be outside the norm, there's absolutely no doubt about that, but we've got plans in place to manage that number of absentees."

Commissioner Klemm said it was not unusual for fire services to have to deal with extreme events that put a strain on staffing, such as major bushfire situations and there were no plans at this stage to only attend urgent jobs if the virus took hold.

How much information is too much?

Associate Professor Smith said deciding how much information to share with the public during a pandemic was a difficult balancing act for governments.

"I personally think some level of transparency would be good at the moment because we need that for people to feel calm … [so] that they are happy to listen to people," she said.

She said the 2003 SARS outbreak hit health workers hard in China and Canada, where about 25 per cent of all cases were healthcare workers.

But she said the public should take comfort in the knowledge the health sector had well-established plans for dealing with such events.

"Some of the major concerns are that we are relying on surge capacity and we do know that many of our emergency services are already operating well above surge capacity on a day-to-day basis," she said.

"But we have been thinking about it, we have been planning for it."

WA's Health Minister Roger Cook said part-time nurses and doctors were being asked if they could work full-time for a period and retired medical staff were being asked if they could return to the workforce to bolster staffing levels.

How bad will the situation get?

Associate Professor Smith said she did not think coronavirus represented a doomsday scenario where the power would go out and Australians would not have running water.

"We are really seeing that across the globe, about 95 per cent of people who are getting sick with this illness are really only experiencing mild illness," she said.

"People who are dying unfortunately tend to be the elderly who already have other comorbidities.

"So I don't think we're going to reach the levels of this apocalyptic doomsday kind of prediction.

"We're already seeing in China that things are already flattening out and that cases are decreasing and that case fatality rates are starting to decrease as well."