Two more Formula One team members have been tested for the coronavirus at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, taking the total having undergone checks for the infection to five.
No results have yet been made available. Two members of the Haas team and one from McLaren, who were identified with fever symptoms on Wednesday, underwent tests for the coronavirus before going into self-isolation.
On Thursday morning Guenther Steiner, the team principal of Haas, confirmed that two more members of his team had shown symptoms and undergone a test before leaving the circuit.
Steiner expects the results from Wednesday’s tests to be available on Thursday afternoon but McLaren warned that the results could take anything between 24 and 72 hours to be distributed.
An FIA representative explained that Melbourne has only only one facility for testing for the virus, that can only process 500 cases at a time and is currently dealing with a backlog.
At Albert Park the build up to the race continued with the track open to the public. Teams however were taking greater precautions as concern spread that the virus already had a hold in the paddock.
Most have cancelled some of their TV media sessions because of the proximity required by cameramen and interviewers and press conferences are taking place behind taped exclusion zones to keep journalists at a distance from drivers and team personnel.
The Williams team have closed their hospitality to the media and deputy team principal Claire Williams suggested it would up to to the Australian government to cancel the race if necessary.
Steiner explained that one engineer and three mechanics from his team had now been tested for the virus. “It is something we need to take seriously and we take it very seriously,” he said. “If somebody has something we ask that they tell us because we want to make sure that they are as safe as possible and not hide it, because that would be the worst thing to do – to spread the virus by not giving attention to it.
“The world is in a difficult position at the moment. We think about ourselves here because this is our world, but there are a lot of bigger problems in the health system where people get infected and they need to work day in night.”
The FIA and F1 have still yet to respond since the five suspected cases of the coronavirus were reported. Steiner however believed the coronavirus situation had a pace too fast for the governing bodies to anticipate.
“This situation is developing so quickly, on an hourly basis that no one can have total control over it,” he said. “I think we are all grown-ups and we need to take care of ourselves. To now say FIA and FOM didn’t give enough leadership, I wouldn’t say that because they didn’t know what was coming. We have been here since Sunday and on Sunday here there was not a problem with the virus and it just escalated.”
There have now been 22 cases in the state of Victoria, and two schools have been closed. On Wednesday Victoria’s chief health officer Brett Sutton stated that it was possible a state of emergency could be declared because of the coronavirus under the Public Health and Wellbeing Act. If enacted it would enable groups of people to be quarantined.
Victoria has also activated the State Control Centre in response to the coronavirus. Emergency management commissioner Andrew Crisp said he and his team decided the “time was right to stand up” the control centre.
Under Victoria’s emergency management protocols, there were three tiers of emergency response and the outbreak was considered a tier-two emergency. The bushfires that afflicted Australia over the summer were considered a tier-three emergency.