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But it is a greater precaution than that suggested by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which only advises Australians not to travel to China and Iran. Advice for South Korea, Japan, Italy and Mongolia is to "exercise a high degree of caution".

"In most countries, we continue to advise Australians to ‘exercise normal safety precautions’," says DFAT, which is where most school travel providers source their advice.

Lachlan Bunn, chief executive of student travel provider Antipodeans, said the company would work with schools to postpone trips if required, but their general policy for cancellations or postponing trips "is always based on DFAT's advice as they are the experts".

"DFAT is currently not warning against travel to any of the destinations that we travel to except for China, for which we have diverted or postponed any future trips," he said. "At it stands, none of our NSW schools on mid-year or end-of-year trips have requested we postpone their trip."

Scott Pinnegar, general manager of World Youth Adventures, another school group travel provider,  said the extra risk management already in place for school travel meant existing protocols would cover the impact of coronavirus.

"[We will] look at whatever ways we can to mitigate losses to parents in these circumstances," he said. "We undertake robust risk management for every trip ... We have a long-term view as do many of our suppliers and we are able to be quite nimble in alternative trip planning."

Schools could become overflow facilities

Schools are among locations that could become overflow facilities to accommodate patients in a worst-case outbreak scenario where public and private hospitals become overwhelmed, according to the NSW Health Pandemic Plan.

Childhood centres and schools could also be closed under the plan to prevent the spread of illness among students, although available data so far shows cases of COVID-19 in children have been rare.

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Japan has closed schools and the United States is planning for that possibility, but research has not established that closing schools during flu pandemics has a consistent effect on curbing infection. A review of research papers from earlier pandemics found infections dropped when schools were closed but shot up when they re-opened. Closures also occurred while a range of other isolation methods were in place, making it difficult to establish causation.

"It is important to note that school closures have only been shown to be moderately effective at reducing transmission rates and the timing and duration of closures would need to be carefully considered," the NSW Health Pandemic Plan says. "Therefore a range of measures designed to help reduce social mixing of students in order to reduce transmission of the pandemic virus may be considered."

This could include cancelling after-school sports and other extra-curricular activities.

With Kate Aubusson