IMPORTANT: If you have severe difficulty breathing, call triple zero (000) immediately and tell the call handler and the paramedics on arrival about your recent travel history and any close contact with a person with confirmed COVID-19.

Check your symptoms

Use the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Symptom Checker to find out if you need to seek medical help.

The rest of this page contains only general information about coronaviruses. Go here for healthcare advice on the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

What is a coronavirus?

Coronaviruses form a large family of viruses that can cause a range of illnesses. These include the common cold as well as more serious diseases like SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) and the more recent coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Coronaviruses have been around for many years and as a result, humans have built up a general immunity to them. This means when we do get a common cold, it is usually not very severe.

However, coronaviruses are not just present in humans. Many animals also have coronavirus-related illnesses and sometimes those viruses can mutate and be passed on to humans. When this happens, the disease can be more severe because the human body has not had to fight this illness before. Both the SARS and MERS diseases are examples of this happening in recent years.

When a new strain of coronavirus is discovered, it is called a ‘novel' coronavirus.

What are the symptoms of COVID-19?

The symptoms of COVID-19 include:

• fever
• chills or night sweats
• cough
• sore throat
• tiredness (fatigue)
• difficulty breathing
• headaches
• muscle pain (myaglia)
• loss of sense of smell (anosmia)
• distortion of sense of taste (dysgeusia)
• nausea/vomiting
• diarrhoea
• joint pains
• loss of appetite
• runny nose

Most people who are infected with COVID-19 experience a mild to moderate respiratory illness.

How is COVID-19 transmitted?

COVID-19 is a new disease, so there’s no immunity in our community. This means that COVID-19 can spread quickly and widely.

COVID-19 can spread from one person to another in 3 ways:

• If you have close contact with an infectious person, including in the 48 hours before they started experiencing symptoms
• If you have contact with droplets from an infected person’s cough or sneeze
• If you touch objects or surfaces, like doorknobs or tables, that have cough or sneeze droplets from an infected person on them, and then you touch your mouth or face.

It was recently suggested that COVID-19 can cause infections of the gut — and that the virus is present in the faeces of infected people. But currently there's no evidence that COVID-19 can be spread by the ‘faecal-oral route’, which is when a virus travels from faeces to the mouth.

Practising physical distancing, good hand and cough hygiene, and isolating confirmed cases are the best ways to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Can people who test positive for COVID-19 but have no symptoms spread the infection?

As a precaution, people are considered infectious 48 hours prior to the onset of symptoms.

There are multiple studies that suggest it’s still possible to spread the infection from person to person even if someone doesn’t show symptoms. However, the risk of transmission from someone who does show symptoms or just before they show symptoms is higher than from people who don’t show symptoms.

For how long can a person spread the infection to other people?

As a precautionary approach, cases are considered infectious 48 hours prior to the onset of symptoms.

What are the different tests available for COVID-19?

There are two types of tests available for COVID-19:

• the diagnostic test, using RT-PCR (Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction)
• the serology test, otherwise known as the antibody test.

In diagnostic tests, a COVID-19 infection is diagnosed by finding genetic material of the virus in respiratory samples, such as swabs from the back of the nose and throat, or fluid from the lungs.

Serology or antibody tests involve taking blood samples to look for antibodies. Antibodies can show if the person had a past infection with the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

How is COVID-19 treated?

There’s no specific treatment or cure for people who have COVID-19. However, if you become unwell with COVID-19, you'll be treated for your symptoms and monitored for complications.

How do I avoid catching COVID-19?

The Australian Government requires you to practise good hygiene. It’s essential to keep your hands clean – especially outside your home — and to cover your cough or sneeze.

It’s also crucial to practise physical distancing.

You need to make sure you:

• wash your hands frequently with soap and water for 20 seconds, or use an alcohol based hand sanitiser
• cover your cough and sneeze, dispose of tissues and wash your hands immediately
• regularly clean and disinfect surfaces you use often such as benchtops and door handles
• avoid contact with others outside your household and stay at least 1.5 metres away from other people as much as possible, and avoid crowded places
• avoid contact with people who are unwell with cold or flu-like symptoms
• stay home if you are unwell
• avoid touching your face or shaking hands with other people.

The government has also set limits on how many people can gather indoors and outdoors, and police in your state or territory will enforce these limits.

Who is at risk of COVID-19 infection?

People who've had close contact with a confirmed or probable case of COVID-19 are most at risk of infection. Travellers who’ve been overseas recently, or have been passengers on a cruise ship, are also at higher risk.

You're also at risk of COVID-19 infection if you live, work or have spent time in one of these high-risk settings:

• Aged care and residential care facilities
• Healthcare settings
• Group residential settings such as: naval ships or military accommodation; boarding schools or houses; correctional facilities and detention centres; and remote industrial sites with accommodation (mines, for example)
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rural and remote communities
• Settings where known COVID-19 outbreaks are occurring
• Schools and childcare centres.

Schools and childcare centres are high-risk environments if there is an outbreak due to the nature of activities that take place in these settings.

To best protect staff, children and parents, please refer to your state and local school district’s most recent policy on school or childcare availability. As each community experiences different impacts from COVID-19, it is important to listen to local and current advice.

What is being done to manage the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak?

Information about the Australian response to COVID-19 is provided on the Department of Health website and is updated daily.

The Australian Government’s health response to the COVID-19 outbreak aims to:

• minimise the number of people becoming infected or sick with COVID-19
• minimise how sick people become
• minimise the mortality rate
• manage the demand on our health systems
• help you to manage your own risk and the risk to others, your family and community.

To reduce the risk of COVID-19 spreading further through international travel, the Australian Government is:

• enforcing travel restrictions
• screening all international travellers who arrive in Australia and ensuring they self-isolate on arrival
• continuing with border surveillance.

State and territory health authorities are:

• testing people suspected of having the virus
• monitoring close contacts of confirmed cases daily
• imposing travel restrictions between states
• opening fever clinics.