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The number of COVID-19 cases rose to over 375 in Australia on Tuesday, with further measures introduced to help the nation's battered economy endure ongoing major disruptions.
The worst affected State of New South Wales (NSW) reportedly had over 200 confirmed cases on Monday, as well as its biggest daily jump with 39 new cases.
Liberal National Senator Susan McDonald and Andrew Bragg became the second and third federal politicians to contract the virus, with Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton also testing positive last week.
Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard has also chosen to isolate herself as a precautionary measure after she embraced Canadian First Lady Sophie Trudeau at an event in London prior to her testing positive.
This week the government introduced a mandatory 14-day self-isolation period on all overseas arrivals in the country, including citizens, as well as a ban on gatherings of over 500 people.
Already a number of high profile festivals, concerts and sporting events scheduled for the coming months have been cancelled, likely costing the economy billions of dollars.
Finance Minister Mathias Cormann has confirmed the government is discussing scaling up the nation's response, with a second round of stimulus measures expected, on top of 17.6 billion Australian dollars (10.7 billion U.S. dollars) already promised.
The Australian share market has fallen over 30 percent since hitting record highs last month, and suffered it's single-day biggest losses since the 1987 market crash on Monday.
NSW State Premier Gladys Berejiklian revealed a 2.3 billion Australian dollars (1.4 billion U.S. dollars) stimulus package aimed at supporting the health system and providing tax relief to complement the federal government's commitment.
"Our approach in relation to dollars in NSW will be first and foremost to save lives. I don't ever want to look back and think we should have done more," Berejiklian told reporters.
The national carrier Qantas on Tuesday slashed its international flight schedule by 90 percent and domestic services by 60 percent.
While the details of the changes are still being worked out by the company, they said that customers with affected bookings will be eligible for a flight credit for use at a later date.
