A CORONAVIRUS cluster in Adelaide has grown to 17 cases, casting fresh doubts over all states and territories opening their borders by Christmas.
But Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt is confident South Australian authorities will bring the outbreak under control.
He has offered to send Australian Defence Force troops and a national incident centre is being set up.
“If more is required, more will be provided,” Mr Hunt told the ABC on Monday.
“But these are the sorts of challenges that if we trade or engage with the world, if we bring Australians home, we will face, in a world where there’s over half a million cases a day.
“Having these strong testing, tracing and isolation systems are absolutely critical, and South Australia – on all the evidence – does have exactly that.”
The cluster has already caused major disruptions, with Western Australia making a snap decision to reimpose border restrictions.
Mr Hunt said there was no medical basis for any state or territory to remain closed.
He said coronavirus cases were bound to flare up across the country at different times but there were strong systems in place to deal with any outbreak.
Victoria has now gone 17 days without any coronavirus cases or deaths.
But Mr Hunt, who hails from Victoria, is reluctant to give the state government credit for keeping the state in lockdown while bringing a second wave under control.
“We always supported, reluctantly and regretfully, going into lockdown once the contact tracing system wasn’t able to cope in Victoria,” he said.
“There were some differences about the speed at the end, particularly once they were well below their case level that NSW was able to manage.
“We felt that perhaps we had more confidence in their system than they did on the way out.”
He and Prime Minister Scott Morrison are visiting Victoria to announce a new, hi-tech vaccine manufacturing facility will be developed in Melbourne.
The federal government has struck a $1 billion deal with Seqirus, a subsidiary of CSL, to rapidly manufacture vaccines in response to future health pandemics.
The pair will also meet Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and are likely to discuss reopening the Melbourne Airport to returning travellers from overseas.
