"The thing we need most as GPs is some masks," said Dr Harry Nespolon, president of the college. "They are not readily available. They are not easy to get. And I gather the Commonwealth has 10 million stored at the moment. This is the time they should be distributing some." The death toll from coronavirus in China rose to 80 on Monday, with the number of confirmed cases now at 2744. Five infections have been confirmed in Australia so far. That number is expected to rise. Chinese police officers outside the Tianenmen gate in Beijing Credit:Getty When a person with suspected coronavirus arrives at a clinic, the federal health department has instructed GPs to fit them with masks and place them in isolation to stop them spreading the disease.

Doctors treating them are being advised to wear respirators and safety glasses. The man with Victoria’s first confirmed case of coronavirus arrived at his GP presenting with symptoms – but the doctor failed to recognise he had the virus and sent him home. The man went to hospital the next day, potentially spreading the virus further. Professor Raina MacIntyre, a global biosecurity expert based at the Kirby Institute in Sydney, said GP clinics were not ready for coronavirus. “I don’t believe GPs surgeries are at all well prepared. At the moment we have a shortage of masks. If you walk into a chemist you won’t be able to get one.”

Loading Dr Nespolon rejected that criticism. “Look, we don’t have hazmat suits. But having said that neither does China. I don’t think anyone is sort of completely prepared for this to start off. “We have protocols about putting people in the right place, and we have protocols about putting people in the right gear. We deal with infections all the time. We deal with influenza every year.” Almost half a million masks were released earlier this month from the stockpile to help people and emergency services workers in smoke-covered areas affected by Australia’s summer of bushfires.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said they were monitoring the situation. "The main purpose of the stockpile masks is to provide P2 masks for healthcare facilities in the event of a large number of patients with infectious diseases requiring investigation and management, in a significant surge situation, when global supplies may be substantially limited," she said. "We recommend the use of a standard surgical mask on patients who may be reviewed as potential infected cases. "Healthcare workers collecting specimens from these patients should wear P2 masks, but these specimens are usually collected at hospitals after referral from GPs. If GP surgeries are unable to obtain standard surgical masks through their normal suppliers, the Commonwealth will undertake to discuss this issue with the College and assist where we can." While Australia's health authorities prepare for the virus, other scientists are desperately trying to work out how fast it is spreading.

Professor James McCaw, a mathematical biologist at the University of Melbourne, is part of a working group urgently convened by the World Health Organisation to try to model the spread of the virus. The group's modelling shows each infected person tends to infect three other people. That makes it more infectious than the flu, but less infectious than SARS and much less infectious than measles, where one person is likely to infect up to 20 people. "This has the characteristic of something that is likely to be well controllable, but maybe not as easily as SARS. We have to wait and see," said Professor McCaw.

Loading A clearer picture of the virus has also started to emerge. Genetic studies suggest the virus has come from bats, not snakes, said Associate Professor Ian Mackay, an infectious disease expert at the University of Queensland. "It means humans don’t have antibodies to it. And often it’s quite different to anything we have seen, so our immune virus will react strenuously to it." SARS is also thought to have come from bats. That was the first time an animal coronavirus jumped into humans, leaving health authorities scrambling.