The federal and state governments have agreed to a four-stage process to open up and live with COVID-19, and the final step arrives when more than 80 per cent of the adult population is fully vaccinated.

The national cabinet agreed to the plan after the Doherty Institute advised that a national adult vaccination rate of between 70 per cent and 80 per cent was optimal to be able to live with the virus, and a level somewhere above 80 per cent would be needed for something approaching full freedom.