When Australia’s Covid restrictions will be scrapped

Australia’s Covid isolation period has officially been shortened, but when will restrictions be removed altogether?

Australia’s Covid isolation requirements could be gone by mid spring, with a leading epidemiologist expecting the country to soon move away from a “rule mentality”.

National cabinet this week agreed to slash the isolation period for positive cases from seven days to five.

People who are still symptomatic on day five will be required to isolate until their symptoms subside. The change will come into effect on September 9.

The reduced isolation period is still higher than many countries, including the UK which has no restrictions whatsoever.

The move was met with controversy, with Australian Medical Association president Professor Steven Robson calling on national cabinet to “release the medical advice” behind the decision making.

“We’re puzzled why they won’t release the health advice underpinning that,” he said.

“At the moment, we’re calling for that to be released so the politicians can justify to the public why they’re making this decision if it is different to the advice that they’re receiving from their health teams around the country.”

Infectious diseases physician Dr Nick Coatesworth hit out at the critics on Twitter stating: “Very interesting reflection on where people sit with regard to pandemic restrictions that they are very happy to accept chief health officer advice with no detail when applying restrictions, but demand to see “the detail” of that advice when those restrictions come off.”

Professor Catherine Bennett, Chair in Epidemiology at the Faculty of Health at Deakin University

Leading epidemiologists, professors Catherine Bennett and Tony Blakely, both said the change in mandatory isolation periods would likely have little impact on infection spread.

Prof Bennett said she expected enforced isolation would be abandoned if the national caseload drops, as expected, in the warmer months.

“I think at this stage, we call it mandatory (isolation) but it’s not policed and it’s not enforced,” she said.

“It’s already something that is built on trust and trust is built on people managing their illness and risk appropriately.

“In the end, we will do this without having rules around it. We are moving away from a rule based mentality.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said leaders agreed to the change in the nation’s Covid settings following fresh advice from Chief Medical Officer Michael Kidd.

“Clearly, if you have symptoms, we want people to stay home. We want people to act responsibly,” Mr Albanese told reporters in Sydney earlier this week.

Masks will also no longer be mandatory on flights but states, including Victoria, continue to enforce mask wearing on public transport.

Prof Bennett said while some people may be puzzled by this, it made sense.

“Aeroplanes have really well managed air insulation, they have filters. They are a good model of ventilation,” she said.

“If you are on public transport, you can be packed in with standing room only.

“It’s actually much more dense on public transport without the good ventilation and twice a day, every day.

“I do think there is a different risk and public transport would be the last place I’d take mask restrictions from.”

Epidemiologist Tony Blakely

Prof Blakely, from the University of Melbourne, echoed the views and said, with people taking a few days to identify their infection, cutting isolation by two days would not make much of a difference.

“I think the first important thing is to pull right back and realise there is no textbook, no magic formula (for) when you do each microscopic thing in a pandemic,” he said.

He said he also believed all restrictions would eventually go by the wayside, but said he did not think now was the right time to completely remove isolation periods.

“We are not going to live like we are living now for the next 20 years, or forever,” he said.

But, Prof Blakely said the necessary restrictions could change if a new variant came along.

“There are all these levers we can push or pull. It’s about getting the settings right,” he said.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrotet had been leading the charge for reduced Covid restrictions, but the Daily Telegraph reported he had been overuled by medical experts during the peak of the Omicron wave.

Victorian minister Ben Carroll told media on Thursday that mask wearing on the state’s public transport system would remain mandatory well into specific, insisting they were a useful tool in stopping the spread of the virus.

“Masks remain an effective tool to drive down infections,” he said.

“I know when I get on an aeroplane I will certainly – even if he person hasn’t got a mask on next to me – be wearing a mask.”