Density limits in hospitality venues have been scrapped, people will no longer need to check-in at supermarkets and retail venues, and dance floors are officially back in both states.
Announcing the change in NSW’s restrictions Premier Dominic Perrottet declared the pandemic is “moving to an endemic phase.”
However, Dr Michael Ryan, Executive Director WHO Health Emergencies programme is urging caution as many countries follow the same path.
“I’m a bit nervous right now that we’re sort of just lifting everything,” he said.
“If we get hit with another variant and we’ve already sort of abandoned all measures it’s going to be really hard to put anything back in place.
“This idea that we’re just going to abandon everything, I think is a very premature concept in many countries right now.”
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Dr Maria Van Kerkhove COVID-19 technical lead of the WHO Health Emergencies program agreed, and said it is “ill-advised to lift everything all at once”.
“In some countries they’re in a better position to be able to do that because they have higher levels of vaccination coverage, high levels of population-level immunity.
“They have the ability to adjust.”
The warning comes after NSW recorded 9995 COVID-19 infections yesterday, and a further 14 deaths.
Victoria saw 8501 cases with a further nine lives lost.
Nationwide, 94.1 per cent of people aged 16 and over are fully vaccinated.
