Coronavirus test challenge for Wagga's Ossie Sutton who struggled to get results.

Ossie Sutton came back from Japan last week after travelling with a group to the Snow Machine Festival in Hakuba. But, since returning, everyone has either caught a cold or flu.

Heeding the health advice, Mr Sutton tried to get tested for the coronavirus before returning to work in the hospitality industry.

However, he said he has been given the runaround.

After trying to call ahead to see a general practitioner, he was referred to the emergency department and then to HealthDirect where he was told to call a general practitioner, and so the vicious cycle began.

"It's just going in circles," he said. "I doubt I have anything, but we want to be sure nonetheless [before returning to work]."

One of his friends who travelled with him to Japan went into the emergency department last Friday to get tested. After a chest x-ray, mouth swab and blood test, Mr Sutton's friend was told he would have the results in 24 hours. His pathology, however was not sent away until Monday.

"I understand it was the weekend, but you would think they would have a system in place by now if it was a massive deal. They should be doing things a bit quicker," he said.

While his friend has been cleared, Mr Sutton is still waiting.

It is a tough decision that many travellers are weighing up at the moment.

Mr Sutton chose to go ahead with his 16-day trip when the advice was to exercise a high degree of caution due to the heightened risk of coronavirus.

"We had already paid for everything so it was a bit of a hard decision about what to do," Mr Sutton said.

The holiday included four days at the Snow Machine Festival, as well as sight-seeing across the country.

He said most COVID-19 cases were confirmed in the northernmost island of Hokkaido, but they stayed mainly in central Japan. Mr Sutton said there were "a couple of cases in Osaka" when they travelled through, but they tried to stay up-to-date on the growing severity of the disease.

"We just thought with the scale of people ... we were just two in a couple of million, so the chances of catching it were low," Mr Sutton said.

"It might have been a bit naive or arrogant.

"But most locals were all wearing masks on the trains. When we got to this four-day music festival with pretty much 3000 Australians, I don't think I saw a mask in sight."

Osaka has a population of more than two million. But if you were none the wiser, Mr Sutton said it would have been hard to believe that from what he experienced.

"You couldn't see a sign of life ... It was quite weird and eerie that we were in a massive city and it was a ghost town," he said.

He recalled a six-lane highway that should have had hundreds and thousands of vehicles passing by, but instead hardly any cars were on the road. At any other time it would have been impossible to cross, he said.

But, with people cooped up inside, Mr Sutton said people could have easily walked from one side of the highway to the other without causing an accident.

"I think everyone was in their houses and stayed off the streets," he said.

It appeared Australia was not alone when it came to its toilet paper crisis.

Mr Sutton said the Japanese were "sent into a panic" when schools were shut down for a month, which led to people stockpiling toilet paper and tissues.

"One day we left our motel and were walking down the street. People were lined up outside their corner stores for probably a block with toilet paper in their arms waiting to pay," he said.

At the time, he had no clue what was going on because he could not understand the Japanese news. But, eventually someone who spoke English was able to fill them in.

Mr Sutton said he was surprised the screening process had barely changed on his way back into Australia.

His group came back via Manila, however the only difference was a thermal camera that scanned body temperatures for fevers.

"The camera was aimed at you as you walked in single file ... I didn't see anyone pulled off the plane if it reached a little high or a little low," he said.

"It just seemed like everyone went straight through."

Once the plane touched down in Australia, Mr Sutton noticed a green sign warning passengers that if they experienced any flu-like symptoms to contact a doctor.

"I thought there would be more screening and something better set up by now," he said.

Mr Sutton said there was a stark difference between Japan and Australia's reaction to the outbreak. While Japan was "over the top" in its response, he said Australia was not doing enough.