Australia will scrap COVID-19 isolation rules on 14 October, National Cabinet agreed on Friday.
State and territory leaders reached an agreement that mandatory isolation should cease for all who test positive to COVID-19, except for aged care and hospital workers.
It means most people will be able to go about their lives even if they have tested positive for the coronavirus.
“It was a unanimous decision by the National Cabinet today and had the support of all premiers and chief ministers,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.
The prime minister said pandemic leave disaster payments will end on 14 October too, with the exception of people in high-risk settings.
Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said the recommendation to remove isolation requirements is “context-specific and timing-specific”.
“It recognises that we are in a very low … community transmission phase of the pandemic here in Australia,” he said.
“It does not in any way suggest that the pandemic is finished. We will almost certainly see future peaks of the virus into the future, as we have seen earlier in this year.
“However, at the moment, we have very low rates of both cases, hospitalisations, intensive care admissions, aged-care outbreaks and various other measures that we have been following very closely in our weekly open report.
“We also have, at the moment, very high hybrid immunity from previous infection, as well as high vaccination rates particularly and specifically in those highly vulnerable communities – older people, people in aged care in particular, people living with a disability and the ones that we have talked about many times before.”
