The health system requires a plan that adopts the 'all-hazards approach' and integrates roles, responsibilities and actions for acute clinical care, public health, and emergency management systems [4] . This calls for coordination across general practices and other ambulatory care services to ensure primary health care needs within the community are effectively monitored and addressed; with hospitals to avoid/delay hospitalisation and facilitate early discharge; and with public health units to share responsibilities for contact tracing, monitoring and treating people in home isolation or quarantine, dispensing of anti-viral medications, and participation in mass immunisations against pandemic strains of the virus (when these become available).