The Northern Territory will scrap its strict vaccine mandate for workers later this month, Chief Minister Natasha Fyles has confirmed.
Prior to today's announcement, people in the Northern Territory who worked in a wide range of industries — including teachers, hospitality workers and beauticians — needed all three COVID-19 vaccines to do their jobs.
"We are moving into a world where we are living with COVID," Ms Fyles said.
"We will end the public health emergency; the vaccine mandate will also end.
"From June 16, we will transition from a state of public health emergency to living with COVID as it becomes endemic in the community."
According to vaccination data from NT Health, 73 per cent of people 16 and older had all three jabs.
COVID vaccination to revert to a 'policy position' for businesses
Ms Fyles said although the government mandate would lift, individual workplaces could make their own policies regarding vaccination requirements.
"Before COVID, there were a number of policy positions from government and non-government organisations around workforce needing to be vaccinated, and so it would revert to a policy position," she said.
Ms Fyles said workplaces could also decide whether to welcome back staff who had lost their jobs after failing to comply with the mandate.
It's not yet clear if workers in high-risk settings, including aged care centres, hospitals and prisons, would still need to be fully vaccinated to enter their workplace.
Some NT CHO directions to stay
Ms Fyles said laws recently passed in NT Parliament would allow the Chief Health Officer (CHO) to make COVID-related directions if required.
This legislation means the Northern Territory's CHO will be able mandate self-quarantine for overseas travellers and restrict movement in remote Aboriginal communities if required.
"The clear health advice is with the epidemiological position of the virus, the high rates of vaccinated Territorians and the prevalence of COVID in our community is that we can make these decisions that we're announcing today," Ms Fyles said.
"Living with COVID means we're now in a place where we can revoke many of the CHO directions such as exclusion zones, lock-in areas, safety measures for businesses, quarantine workers and facilities, major events, cruise ship limits, and as I said mandatory vaccinations and also the high-risk place settings."
Ms Fyles said additional information would be provided to the community and businesses in the coming week.
The Marrara Vaccination Centre will close at the end of the month along with the Howard Springs Quarantine Facility.
Ms Fyles said the Commonwealth and NT governments would ensure the Howard Springs facility could be stood up again at any point over the next 12 months, if required.
"The [resident] numbers have decreased significantly," she said.
"In fact, there's been only a handful of people in the facility through the month of May."
Ms Fyles said some CHO directions would remain in place beyond June 16.
This includes requirements for COVID-positive people to isolate, testing requirements, requirements to declare positive tests, and additional assistance for police to enforce CHO directions.
NT records another COVID-related death
Ms Fyles said 52 Territorians had died with coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.
This figure includes the COVID-related death of a man in his 80s, reported by NT health authorities this morning.
The man, who was from Darwin and had underlying health conditions, died at Royal Darwin Hospital.
There are currently 16 COVID-19 patients in territory hospitals, with one requiring oxygen.
The Northern Territory is today reporting 250 new cases of the virus, 221 of which were from positive rapid antigen tests (RATs).
NT Chief Health Officer Charles Pain urged Territorians not to be complacent.
"We are now seeing a steady decline in cases, we've been seeing that for some weeks now," he said.
"The decline is slow, but it is clearly on a downward trajectory.
"[Case numbers] may well come up again, there may well be variants that come along and that's why there are these additional powers that may be necessary."
Dr Pain said the likelihood of another strain of coronavirus prompting future emergency declarations appeared to be "decreasing".
"Of course, there always is that risk and there always is the chance that [there] will be another variant that's more infectious," he said.
