Raina MacIntyre

It depends on where you're assuming the first exposure was.

There's quite a science to outbreak investigation and, of course, we've got lots of highly qualified people doing that kind of thing in Australia who will...

assess the whole situation and get detailed contact histories from these people so I think it should be well managed.

Yeah, it's challenging all around and it's a little bit reminiscent of the West African Ebola outbreak in 2014 where there were cases that occurred around the world through travel and a couple of outbreaks sparked off, including in Nigeria.

Yeah.

You know, I think it's going to be similar to that or to MERS coronavirus, where you can see cases popping up, but I wouldn't expect it to take off and become a pandemic.

Firstly, because there's a lot of people saying it's different to COVID.

No one's really articulating why.

The reason is that this has a very long incubation period, which gives you time to

to trace the contacts, quarantine them and isolate people who may be potentially infectious.

And also, although asymptomatic transmission is potentially a factor, it's unlikely to be a dominant factor.

Whereas in COVID, it's a hugely dominant factor.

50% or more of all SARS-CoV-2 transmissions are from people who are

completely asymptomatic, which makes it diabolically difficult to control.

So those two factors are not there with this, which is why I think it can be controlled.

Okay.

No, no, no.

I think Australia has an excellent public health infrastructure and culture and expertise.

And, you know, that's the right approach.

I think it's going to be a lot harder this time, even though we've got lessons that may or may not have been learnt during COVID.