Coronavirus cases in Canberra increase by nine, as first recovery recorded

The recovered patient was the ACT's first confirmed patient, and is no longer required to self-isolate.

There have been nine new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, bringing the ACT's total to 53.

The new cases include six men and three women, aged between 21 and 83.

The US Embassy in Canberra has confirmed one if its staff members has tested positive for COVID-19.

A spokesman said ACT Health was involved in the case and all potential contacts had been traced and contacted.

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Of the new cases, eight are linked to overseas travel, including cruise ships, and one is a close contact of a confirmed case.

There have been 3219 negative COVID-19 tests in the ACT to date.

There are currently three COVID-19 patients in Canberra Hospital. All are in a stable condition.

There is currently no evidence of community transmission in the ACT, chief health officer Kerryn Coleman said, but it was inevitable it would occur.

"While I am reasonably optimistic at this point in time, we will see more cases," she said.

"We can only hold this down for a certain amount of time - when we do get community transmission we need to continue to suppress that and do as much as we can to minimise the impact of community transmission."

She said the most common symptoms among ACT's confirmed cases were headaches, fatigue and then a fever and sore throat.

Dr Coleman said authorities were not actively pursuing spot checks on isolation compliance for people who have returned home, but they were being sent text messages and some followed up with phone calls.

"I have great confidence that everyone is doing the right thing," she said.

She said Canberrans could still do better at social distancing.

"I think we're still in the learning curve," Dr Coleman said.

"I went for a takeaway coffee this morning .. and people are still hanging around quite closely together."

Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said the ACT could not close its borders to NSW.

"There are simply too many people who live in Queanbeyan and work in essential services in the ACT and vice versa," she said.

"If you don't need to travel within the region, and certainly if you don't need to travel within regions, you should not need to be doing so."

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