Australia "in a position to start recovery" from COVID-19 - Health Minister

As the number of new coronavirus cases in Australia has been in a steady decline in recent days, Health Minister Greg Hunter said Tuesday that the country is "in a position to start the recovery," reported Xinhua news agency.

The Department of Health revealed that there had been 6,625 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of Tuesday morning, an increase of about 0.19 per cent from 6,612 on Monday.

Health Minister Greg Hunt announced on Tuesday that the government has achieved its national goal of 7,500 ventilators, significantly increasing the hospital system's capacity to deal with outbreaks.

"We have delivered into Australia 60 million masks. That has allowed for 22 million distributions with another 11.5 million masks to be distributed over the coming week," he told reporters on Tuesday afternoon.

"We have now achieved our national goal of full capacity of 7,500 ventilators. That is an extraordinary achievement across our hospitals and across the country.

"All of this means we are in a position to start the recovery."

Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Tuesday announced that two thirds of Australians who have been diagnosed with the virus have recovered.

Of the 6,625 confirmed cases in Australia, 71 have died. More than 434,000 tests have been conducted across the country.

An analysis of Australia's first 6,400 cases compiled by the Department of Health has revealed that patients with diabetes or heart or lung disease are most at risk from COVID-19.

The median age of people who had died in Australia as of April 12 was 78 while that for those who had been hospitalised was 60.

Cough was the most common symptom, reported in 70 per cent of cases, followed by fever in 48 per cent.

--BERNAMA

TAGS: Australia, coronavirus, COVID-19, cases