AMA WA says 25 per cent of West Australians could contract COVID-19, number of intensive care beds in State would need to be doubled

WA is preparing for a coronavirus pandemic amid warnings from the State’s top doctor that up to one-in-four West Australians could contract the disease. Chief health officer Andrew Robertson told about 200 doctors across the State in an online video conference that the WA Health Department had moved into a “pandemic planning” stage. Dr Robertson outlined the enormous impact a pandemic would have on hospitals and the extra-ordinary measures being planned to cope with potentially tens of thousands of severely ill patients. He said modelling suggested the number of intensive care beds in the State could need to be doubled to cope with the influx of coronavirus cases and result in delays to elective surgery. Dr Robertson told the conference, hosted by the Australian Medical Association WA on Thursday, that planning included: Yesterday, WA’s second case of coronavirus was confirmed after a 79-year-old woman, pictured above, evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan tested positive. Her 78-year-old husband was the State’s first case and he remains in a stable condition at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital’s ICU. Dr Robertson told the con-ference that the expectation was that a vaccine would not be ready for another 18 months. He said modelling suggested a “hit rate” of about 25 per cent, meaning about 500,000 people in Perth would contract the disease. Based on the outbreaks overseas, 82 per cent were mild cases, 4-5 per cent required intensive care and the death rate was 2-3 per cent — but “considerably higher” for people over 65 and/or with co-morbidity. “There are many factors that will affect these calculations as the population is not homogenous, including the age of the patients, the demographics of the population, the general health of the population, the availability of health services, new treatments and the impact of isolation and quarantining on effected populations,” he said. “We know, for example, that children under 17 account for a very small percentage of cases and almost none of the serious cases but make up a significant part of the population. “There will be more serious cases in those over 65 but they make up a smaller proportion of the population.” Dr Robertson told the webinar that 80 per cent of cases would be able to recover at home, so much of the Health Department’s focus was on boosting capacity in hospital EDs and ICUs. “The more broader question is how do we address the more seriously ill ones?” he said. “How do we increase our capacity of our ICUs? How do we increase our capacity in wards? How do we work with private hospitals to look at maintaining some services? “There is always going to be trauma, coronary events, mothers are still going to be delivering babies ... how do we protect some of that business as usual? “Yes, it will probably impact on things like elective surgery and there may well be delays.” Pharmacies across Perth have had a surge in people buying face masks and hand sanitiser and many of those contacted yesterday had sold out of face masks. Dr Robertson said stockpiles of masks were “not massive” and hospitals needed to conserve them. “We’ve seen the figures,” he said. “We are going to get seriously ill people. We are going to get people in intensive care. “We need to have the masks to manage those patients. Otherwise, understandably, we won’t get any staff to manage those patients and that will be an awful outcome.” AMA WA president Andrew Miller said the community needed to “wake up” to the possibility that up to a quarter of the State’s population could be infected. “This is not a time for panic ... but it is a time for preparation,” he said. Health Minister Roger Cook, who met with his counterparts and Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt yesterday as part of the Council of Australian Government Health Council emergency meeting, said he was “very concerned” about the availability of doctors and hospital beds and warned people to prepare for disruption, suggesting closures of schools and major events. “I think people need to understand that there’ll be very few of us in the community that won’t be impacted in some way by the coronavirus,” he said.