National public health information service Healthdirect Australia was naturally called into action as the coronavirus first started to emerge in early 2020, providing telephone advice to the worried public through its well established healthdirect helpline.

What was a little different about setting up what has since become known as the National Coronavirus Helpline (NCH) was the timeframe: just two weeks from start to go-live. And since it went live in March 2020, it has handled more than four million calls.