A person infected with coronavirus in NSW became contagious within 24 hours of contracting the disease, less than the usual incubation period.
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Deputy Chief Medical Officer Michael Kidd said as case numbers rose, health authorities were beginning to see people becoming infectious earlier.
"The advice from infectious disease experts and the (Australian Health Protection Principal Committee) is that while this is unusual, it is not implausible," he told reporters in Canberra.
Professor Kidd said people usually started to show symptoms within five to seven days of catching the virus and were contagious up to two days earlier.
But he said the AHPCC believed it was unlikely the strain had changed, based on the NSW case.
"We think it is how it is expressed in individual people," Professor Kidd said.
Australian Associated Press
