Epidemiologists are urging the public not to throw out the lessons of the pandemic as Australia embraces a sense of COVID reprieve with the easing of government mandates and falling case loads.
"A lot depends on us now," Deakin University associate professor Hassan Vally said.
"We still should be doing all the things that we've learned about over the best part of two-and-a-half years."
Professor Vally said the decision to scrap mandatory COVID-19 isolation from next Friday needs to be backed up with strong government messaging about how the community should behave.
"The governments have got to communicate what that means to people a bit better, and in the absence of any clear messaging, people are going to start ... saying that the pandemic is over come Friday."
"I don't think the pandemic is over yet, we've still got quite a lot of work to do."
It comes as the ACT reported the lowest weekly COVID-19 case load for the year.
There were 560 COVID cases in the territory between September 26 and October 2, according to the weekly epidemiological report released on Friday.
There were 53 people in hospital at 4pm Wednesday, with one person in ICU.
'Too soon to scrap COVID isolation': AMA president
Epidemiologists will be watching the situation in the northern hemisphere closely as colder months, relaxed COVID-19 measures and a drop in testing stir up uncertainty about what is to come.
Australian Medical Association president Steve Robson has slammed the decision to ease mandatory isolation, saying Australia was poised for another COVID wave.
"All the signs are that we're looking at another wave of COVID," he said in an interview with AAP.
"We're coming out of one of the biggest waves of COVID yet and it has absolutely crushed [the] hospital workforce and left us with a massive logjam and backlog in hospitals at the moment that has to be dealt with.
"If we have another wave over the holiday season, then it spells bad news for the country because we can't tackle that backlog."
Professor Robson said information from the northern hemisphere showed newer variants of the virus wouldn't be affected by immunity from previous infections or from vaccinations.
"We're seeing a major wave beginning again in the northern hemisphere," he said.
Australia has the summer months to prepare
ANU medical school professor of infectious diseases Peter Collignon said he expected the uptick in cases in the northern hemisphere would not be as severe as previous years.
"I'm expecting COVID to kick up in those places in winter, I'm not expecting it to be anything like the previous winter or the winter before, but it will be higher," he said.
Deakin University epidemiologist Professor Catherine Bennett said having the "lead time" of the warmer months to observe the situation in the northern hemisphere could also serve Australia well.
"We will have a bit of lead time, so if we do see it really turning around, it's escalating, there's new variants ... hopefully, Australia would be able to manage it better in summer.
"It might not mean that we reinstate isolation and other things.
"But it just might mean that case numbers do push up over the summer, but that we're able to control it with the natural benefits of spending more time outdoors."
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