via ABC.net.au
According to the report, "the workshop delivered the overarching advice that, in the scenario provided, Australia would suffer massive upheaval within one week due to job losses, social unease and [public and industrial] hoarding."Here.
With at least 90 per cent of Australia's specialist medical supplies imported, the report found specialist medicines "may be exhausted within days", with "severe repercussions for public health".
Within a fortnight, with a restriction of imported medical equipment, "health care would be degraded".
For Ms Durrant, the report was evidence Australian governments could have been better prepared when the fallout from the pandemic hit the nation's hospitals, supermarkets and Centrelink queues.
"Our preparedness planning was probably a D-plus or a C-minus, but our response was much better," she said.
"In order to have that response that is really sharp out of the blocks, we weren't quite there in the first couple of weeks.
"I was bemoaning the fact that even though we'd done the work and had seen what might happen, we hadn't yet been able to get the buy-in to do the further planning and actually act on that information."
