National Cabinet to discuss reducing Covid isolation time

Domestic travel, isolation requirements and mandatory vaccines for disability workers will feature on national cabinet’s agenda.

A push to standardise domestic travel, contact tracing and isolation requirements as Australia moves to live with Covid-19 will feature in a meeting to hash out the finer points of the nation’s reopening.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and state leaders, including for the first time Premier Dominic Perrottet, will meet for national cabinet on Friday to discuss mandatory vaccines for disability and homeware workers, hospital capacity, indigenous vaccine rates and the latest case numbers modelling from the Doherty Institute.

Premier Dominic Perrotet will attend his first National Cabinet since becoming leader. Picture: NCA Newswire / Gaye Gerard

Mr Morrison is also expected to seek firm commitments from states around protocols for tracing Covid-19 cases, with the national cabinet meeting to include an update from Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly on the latest research about the optimum quarantine and isolation periods.

Where safe to do so the government wants to reduce isolation time for close contacts to avoid workforce shortages as the country reopens.

Mr Morrison arrived in Australia on Thursday morning after six days overseas for the G20 summit in Rome and the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

After getting his passport checked at the airport, Mr Morrison joined the growing cohort of fully vaccinated returned international travellers who have arrived in NSW since November 1 and do not need to quarantine.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison arrives back in Sydney after attending the UN Climate Change Summit GOP26 in Glasgow. Picture by Adam Taylor/PMO

Health Minister Greg Hunt praised the “good progress” in NSW, Victoria and ACT since delta wave lockdowns lifted, and said the next phase of the pandemic involved constant reviews of how measures to protect those most vulnerable to the virus were working.

“I have to say the progress has been good,” he said.

“We have been able to begin the process of opening up, of families being united, people being brought together.”

High vaccination rates and social distancing measures are being attributed to the success of eastern states’ reopening, as Australia is expected to reach 80 per cent double-dose vaccination within the next two days.

“In terms of national cabinet, I think the critical thing is just continuing to work together as a nation to open up safely and therefore to remain safely open,” Mr Hunt said.

Australia is days away from an 80 per cent double dose vaccination rate nationally. Picture: James D. Morgan/Getty Images

Health Minister Greg Hunt has praised the reopening in NSW, Victoria and the ACT. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

He also confirmed Australia was ready to roll out the vaccine to five to 11 year-olds as soon as the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) had assessed all the safety and efficacy data submitted by Pfizer.

“As soon as the medical regulator is ready and they’ve done all of the work to ensure that it’s safe and effective, we have the doses; we have the distribution system,” he said.

Mr Hunt said he was also expecting an application from Moderna “in the next few weeks” to have their Covid-19 vaccine approved as a booster.

More than 100,000 Australians have already had a third Covid-19 dose, which are recommended six months after the second dose.

While NSW has already opened its international borders to fully vaccinated returning Australians, decisions are still to be made about the return of skilled workers, international students and tourists.