Health authorities have been examining ways to scale up the capacity to provide testing for the coronavirus to ensure rapid tests are available across the country if needed.

Key points: Coronavirus tests in Australia currently only take place in public health laboratories

Coronavirus tests in Australia currently only take place in public health laboratories Chief Medical Officer Professor Brendan Murphy says there are now plans to "scale up" testing capabilities around the country

Chief Medical Officer Professor Brendan Murphy says there are now plans to "scale up" testing capabilities around the country Professor Murphy says private laboratories may start testing so that public labs are not overwhelmed

Commonwealth chief medical officer Brendan Murphy told 7.30 authorities were looking at ways of expanding the availability of the test to private laboratories.

"At the moment, because this is a new test — it's only just been really set up — we set them up in the public health laboratories," he said.

"These are government-run laboratories in every state and territory and they established the test. We didn't want them being done in a lot of private labs initially, because we wanted to make sure the tests were working well [and were] in our hands.

"The tests have worked extremely well."

Professor Brendan Murphy says he does not want government-run laboratories to be overwhelmed with coronavirus testing. ( AAP: Ellen Smith )

Professor Murphy said there had been well over 10,000 tests done in Australia, most of which were "obviously" negative.

"But we are now in advanced planning with the pathology sector to work out how we can scale up," he said, "because the public health laboratories will reach a capacity point."

Professor Murphy said that, at the moment, the public laboratories can do a same-day turnaround test in hours.

"But we don't want to be in a position where they are overwhelmed," he said.

"So private labs have now got commercial diagnostic tests that are being evaluated for registration with the Therapeutic Goods Administration and we're working with the pathology sector to work out what's the best way to scale up the testing if we need to."

That might involve either the Federal Government making a contract with a pathology lab to provide the tests or making it accessible via Medicare.

Current testing for coronavirus includes swabs from inside the nose and the back of the throat.