WA's COVID-19 state of emergency will end on Friday, more than two and a half years after it began, as the government prepares for an independent review into its performance during the pandemic.
The state of emergency has given the government extraordinary powers to manage the pandemic, allowing it close borders, locking the state down and enforce mask-wearing.
Premier Mark McGowan said the end of the state of emergency after 963 days marked a "significant milestone" in the state's management of the pandemic and would mean "we'll be relying on the public to do the right thing".
"Wear a mask as needed, stay home if you're unwell, get tested if you have symptoms and avoid high-risk settings until symptoms have cleared," he said.
"This basic health advice is highly recommended and can be adopted as a requirement through businesses' own policies and work health and safety arrangements."
Mr McGowan said some restrictions would remain in hospitals.
Replacement laws not activated
Temporary COVID legislation passed through parliament earlier this month would not be immediately activated, leaving the state "essentially going back to normal", Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said.
"If we have a spike [in cases], a new variant comes along, something occurs that we haven't foreseen, it's there as a back-up measure should it be required," Mr McGowan added.
Any activation of those provisions, which would give the state almost all of the powers that were available under the state of emergency except for border restrictions, would only be activated by the Police Commissioner on the advice of the Chief Health Officer, he said.
Deputy Nationals leader Shane Love said he was pleased to see the state of emergency coming to an end, but remained concerned about the power that remained in the Commissioner's hands.
"My contention would be that's the job of the minister and the government to make that call, not the job of the Police Commissioner," he said.
"I have enormous respect for the Police Commissioner but he can't be knowing all things about everything."
Hospitals will remain effectively the only place with restrictions in force.
Ms Sanderson said staff and visitors would still be required to stay away from hospitals after testing positive, until 24 hours after "acute symptoms" passed.
Mask-wearing would be managed by individual hospitals, with different rules to apply in different parts of hospitals depending on how vulnerable patients were.
"If you're unwell, you should not visit other people in hospital. The number of visitors will be determined by each hospital in line with system-wide infection prevention," she said.
Ms Sanderson said she expected private hospitals, as well as aged and disability care facilities, would adopt similar requirements.
She also said proof of vaccination requirements would remain.
Long COVID clinic to be trialled
The government will also trial a long COVID clinic at Bentley Health Service, led by a senior physiotherapist.
It will be available to patients aged 16 and over who have symptoms more than 12 weeks after contracting COVID, following a referral from their GP.
"The clinic will offer patients further assessment and management of their symptoms," Ms Sanderson said.
"WA Health continues to monitor long COVID in the community and further clinics may be established for other catchment areas if needed, should the trial prove successful."
Review to help 'future generations'
Mr McGowan said the government was in the process of starting an independent review into the state's handling of the pandemic, with more details to be released by the end of the year.
"Our world-leading response sets us apart," he said.
"The independent review will ensure preparedness for future pandemics by considering programs and structures that have performed effectively and identifying any areas for continuous improvement.
"I don't know if the next [pandemic is] going to be in five years, 10 years, 100 years, but there will be things that came out of this that would be good for future generations to know about."
The Premier said he would stand by the state's border arrangements for the rest of his life, and that he would not have done anything differently in responding to the virus — pointing to the state's comparatively low levels of hospital admissions and deaths from COVID.
He also noted the state's strong economic performance, record surpluses and unemployment figures, and regaining the AAA credit rating.
"As a state, we should be very proud of what we achieved: the best health and the best economic outcomes of anywhere in the entire world," Mr McGowan said.
The review would primarily be focused on health aspects of the pandemic, the Premier said, but he would not object to it considering economic results "because the economic outcomes are very strong".
Mr Love said the opposition had been calling for a review for some time, and wanted to see it look at more than just health outcomes – including the G2G pass system.
"You can't tell me that that process was flawless, and I think it does need to be examined to ensure that in the future we can do things better," he said.
Australian Medical Association WA president Mark Duncan-Smith said he was pleased to see the government commit to the review.
"I'd like to see, obviously, non-government people on that review so that they can actually review the processes, the responses, to see where things were done well and where they could have been improved," he said.
"And I would like to see outcomes that actually are tangible so that we can effectively get an instruction sheet or a recipe of how to approach future pandemic and health emergencies."
