Tasmania is testing for coronavirus outside the national guidelines but concerns this is still not testing widely enough have been raised in Parliament.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
During Question Time on Tuesday, Labor leader Rebecca White said there were significant concerns Tasmania was still not doing enough testing to ensure community transmission had not started.
Coronavirus: All the latest updates on COVID-19 for Tasmania
"The World Health Organisation has warned without a large-scale effort to test and trace coronavirus the disease can spread quickly and silently throughout the community," Ms White said.
Clark independent MHA Madeleine Ogilvie also asked the Premier to undertake widespread community testing as a matter of priority.
But Premier Peter Gutwein said Tasmania was testing within the national guidelines and had tested outside of those guidelines on occasion.
"We've expanded our criteria to include people with fever and respiratory symptoms who have travelled from interstate in the 14 days previously," Mr Gutwein said.
More on coronavirus:
"Public Health further advise that Tasmania has enough test kits to meet current demand and the number of people we are testing is consistent with the national average."
Mr Gutwein could not provide the number of test kits in Tasmania but said the country's national testing stock levels had increased with the recent arrival of a further 97,000 tests.
Earlier in the day, Public Health deputy director Scott McKeown said Tasmania had already expanded its testing criteria in response to the local situation.
"We've already responded to where the national outbreak is and Tasmania's status by not having any community transmission by putting in the border measures we have," Dr McKeown said.
"There have been circumstances in Tasmania when we have decided for particular cases, whether it be a more complex case of a person in hospital or an illness in a healthcare worker or a person in the community that presents to their GP with a history that we think testing is required, we have been testing and none of those circumstances or people that have been tested have confirmed coronavirus.
"We do understand the national advice will shift and we will certainly shift with that advice if it's appropriate for Tasmania."