More than 18 months before the first case of COVID-19 emerged in China, a leading US university staged an elaborate exercise to test America's preparedness to deal with a global pandemic triggered by a novel coronavirus.

Key points: The WA Police have established a command centre at Perth Stadium

The WA Police have established a command centre at Perth Stadium Police will use tracking technology to check on people self-quarantining

Police will use tracking technology to check on people self-quarantining The Defences Force may also have an increased role in supporting hospitals



The exercise tracked the pandemic and the increasingly desperate response of governments and health authorities as it escalated from detection to disaster.

At the five-month point, hospitals were failing, the demand for surgical masks and respirators was surging, civil order had broken down and the military was guarding hospitals and pharmacies.

It seemed like a dystopian film script, but with the spread of COVID-19 and an unprecedented shutdown, the West Australian Government is having to grapple with exactly that reality.

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High level command centre to protect law and order

The establishment of a high level command centre in the empty Perth Stadium signals the WA Government is preparing for any eventuality.

When Premier Mark McGowan announced the centre this week, he said it was to ensure law and order was maintained.

"Police here will track workforce impacts and planning for the need for essential services across Western Australia," he said.

"They will turn the directions that come out of the state emergency committee meetings, which happened at least twice a week, into operational guidance for officers, to ensure the resilience and continuity of law and order in Western Australia."

Just days earlier he alluded to previously unthinkable consequences if the essential services workforce could not be maintained.

"We have to keep our power stations, our water supply, our essential services in health and education and police operational," he said.

The Premier has started thanking essential service workers at the start of every media appearance, recognising he is asking them to work in extraordinary circumstances.

Police will play a crucial role in maintaining the order he seeks.

Police have already been called to keep order at supermarkets in Perth as panic buying continued. ( ABC News: James Carmody )

What happens when police get sick?

But Edith Cowan University Associate Professor in disaster and emergency response Erin Smith said, like other essential service workers, police she had spoken to were anxious about whether going to work meant risking coming home with the virus and giving it to their families.

She believed the WA Police Force could struggle to fulfil its role because of the number of officers likely to get sick, need quarantine or refusing to work.

"We will absolutely start to see an impact on numbers of essential workers, right across our frontlines," she said.

On March 25, Health Minister Roger Cook announced that, like health workers, police officers would be eligible for COVID-19 tests.

"They perform a vital role on our frontline and must be protected so they can continue to perform their duties," Mr Cook said.

Tracking technology to monitor confirmed cases

What's going on behind the stadium doors isn't entirely clear.

WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson gave away a sliver of information when he revealed people who tested positive would be tracked using technology previously used to monitor the whereabouts of police officers.

Police at incident command centre will use new tracking technology to aid self-quarantine monitoring. ( Supplied: WA Police )

"We've got a very integrated data system that in fact the Government funded only last year," he said.

"So we can geo map and plot exactly where each officer is and, equally so, if a person has been positively identified and they have been asked at health direction to self-quarantine, we know exactly where they are."

In Victoria, police have been conducting spot checks to make sure people directed to self-isolate were indeed at home.

It's a tactic that worked well in containing Singapore's outbreak.

'It's a state of emergency'

Beyond tracking people, Commissioner Dawson said the Perth Stadium incident command centre would coordinate public service, private sector and voluntary workers.

"People are very familiar with this sort of scenario if you've been through a cyclone or if you've been through a bushfire," he said.

"This is exponential in terms of that."

Commissioner Dawson announced the creation of the incident command centre at Perth Stadium this week. ( ABC News: Hugh Sando )

"If a person is homeless, we've got to make sure that they get the basic necessities of life, that they've got shelter, that they've got food, that they've got access to the services that we'd ordinarily expect.

"It is a state of emergency so we will have to break glass if we have to, to ensure that the whole community is cared for."

So what happens next?

Associate Professor Smith said we could see from events in Europe the next steps Australian authorities might need to take.

"We only need to look to Italy and Spain to see that, you know, they're calling in the military to help with civil disobedience," she said.

Local police stand guard outside an ice rink, which will be used as a morgue, in Madrid. ( Reuters: Juan Medina )

"In New York City they're turning convention centres into temporary hospitals. In Spain they've converted an ice rink into a temporary morgue.

"Things we never really thought would happen are happening, so we can't be too naive to think that we won't be looking at similar kinds of things happening here in Australia."

Army may step in to security roles

Associate Professor Smith also predicted an increased domestic role for Australia's Defence Force.

"Reserve Defence Force members have been contacted to indicate their availability to assist in activities such as staffing field hospitals, securing supply chains and enforcing public law and order," she said.

WA COVID-19 snapshot Confirmed cases so far: 665

Confirmed cases so far: 665 Recovered: 650

Recovered: 650 Deaths: 9

Deaths: 9 Total tests: 405,246 Latest information from the WA Health Department





She said the military in particular may begin to play a more visible role in protecting Australian hospitals.

"[Australian hospitals] are starting to see incidences of civil disobedience, of aggressive and assertive behaviour of patients coming into the emergency department," she said.

"It's probably out of the realm of the usual security guards to be dealing with that when these patients are potential COVID patients.

"At some point, and probably soon, hospitals need to start implementing locked down areas within the hospitals where the public can't go, where they can allocate COVID patients and potential COVID patients, and the military, and reservists particularly, will help them manage those sort of areas."

Hospital lockdowns coming

This week a talkback caller to ABC Radio Melbourne said his wife, a nurse, had been abused while wearing her scrubs.

The scale of the COVID-19 pandemic in northern Italy has overwhelmed medical staff. ( Reuters: Francesca Mangiatordi )

"She was parking her car last night, someone approaches her and elbows her and calls her an effing this and that, and that she's spreading the virus," he said.

Associate Professor Smith also predicted stricter rules on hospital visits would soon be in place.

"I've already heard of some hospitals that are just blankly already stating that you cannot visit a COVID-19 patient," she said.

"We might actually see whole hospitals locked down and just say no visitation at all, it doesn't matter if you're having a baby or having a heart attack.

"Again, that's where I can see the military playing an important role as well."