ACT chief health officer Dr Kerryn Coleman believes there are risks associated with scrapping mandatory COVID isolation next month, but she is confident the community will continue to protect each other.
Dr Coleman said the decision made at national cabinet to end the five-day isolation period imposed on people who test positive for COVID-19 on October 14 was a complex one, but low case numbers helped support the choice.
"Theoretically, I think the challenge is that removing mandatory isolation means we could have increased cases of people who are infectious circulating in the community, which theoretically means there could be increasing transmission and a flow-on effect," Dr Coleman said.
"What we actually don't know is will that happen at this point in time with the amount of cases that we have in the community and the infectivity of the actual variant we're dealing with.
"My hope is we have the balance right: that we have enough people who are isolating and not presenting an exposure risk to other people, that we'll be able to keep the transmission at the current levels."
The ACT reported 616 new cases over the week to 4pm on Thursday, with 55 people in hospital and one person in intensive care.
There were 342 active cases of COVID-19 at 4pm on Thursday, while one man in his 80s died with COVID-19 during the week.
Dr Coleman said health authorities would need to consider if more restrictions were needed if an increase in cases resulted in a higher number of hospitalisations and more aged-care facility outbreaks.
"I have great confidence in our community, as I've had this entire period of time, that they will come to the fore. And if they are sick, and they actually have symptoms, that they will stay at home and they will work hard to protect the community," she said.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr said the decision to end the mandatory isolation period COVID-19 was unanimously taken at national cabinet on Friday.
"We are clearly in a period of much lower levels of transmission and all of the data points are pointing to a period of quite different COVID conditions than what was the case over winter and indeed other points in the pandemic," Mr Barr said.
Mr Barr said COVID emergency settings could and would be reinstated if they were required, but the foreshadowed step down in restrictions should not come as a surprise.
"My particular concern was getting through winter. Whilst Canberra's fake spring in September can be bracing at times, I think by the middle of October, which is halfway through spring, we can say that winter is concluded," he said.
Mr Barr said it was "undoubtedly" becoming harder for governments to issue public health advice that the community would follow closely.
"There's a section of the population that are absorbing every single message in its nuance and then there's the other 95 per cent of the population, I think is the reality now," he said.
"Most people - the existing rules didn't matter. They weren't following them anyway.
"One of the other considerations in all of this is if you're going to have a set of proportionate public health measures, it's best if they are followed and enforceable."
Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said she understood why some people in the community would see a contradiction when the government announced an end to its public health emergency but warned the pandemic was not over.
"We have shifted and moved our response throughout the pandemic; this is another shift," Ms Stephen-Smith said.
"While the removal of isolation is quite a significant shift in the change in some ways, in other ways it's part of a continuous transition away from public health directions from government obliging people to do things ... to reminding people of their personal responsibility in the face of ongoing COVID-19 transmission in the community, both to protect themselves and to protect the people around them."
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