Western Australia's mask mandate will be dropped from Friday, as the state moves to new baseline public health measures.
Other changes include removing capacity limits at all venues, including the two square metre rule, and the 75 per cent limit at stadiums.
The G2G pass system will also be dropped, as will the requirement for domestic arrivals to be triple-dose vaccinated.
Proof of vaccination requirements for entry into venues such as pubs and nightclubs will also be removed, but they will remain for hospitals and aged care facilities.
However, vaccination mandates for some workplaces will remain.
"It is time for us to live with this disease," Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said.
"We've shown that we have worked superbly together as a community to manage the pandemic, and now it is time for us to start to return to normal."
Close contact isolation lifted
From Friday, close contacts of positive COVID cases will no longer have to quarantine for seven days if they are symptom-free.
They will, however, have to wear a mask when outside the home, avoid high-risk settings and take a rapid antigen test daily.
"For example, if your partner is sick at home with COVID, you can leave to go to the shops wearing a mask, but you shouldn't go to a nightclub or visit an elderly relative," Ms Sanderson said.
Masks will still be required for those 12 and over on public transport, in rideshare services and taxis, at aged care facilities, hospitals, prisons and disability care facilities.
Most other Australian states and territories have also eased their mask mandates in the last week.
Unvaccinated international arrivals will still have to quarantine for seven days, but Ms Sanderson said the measure will be reviewed in four weeks' time.
Schools will also have restrictions removed, with children aged 8 to 11 no longer required to wear a mask, and events like assemblies and camps allowed to go ahead.
The government will also distribute 12 million free rapid antigen tests to schools and childcare facilities, which will be offered to parents and students to use if they develop symptoms.
Only 'modest' restrictions remain
As Health Minister, Ms Sanderson was left to announce the change with Premier Mark McGowan still in isolation after contracting COVID last week.
She said the changes were being made because WA had achieved the soft landing "that the Premier promised, and that the public deserves".
"With our world-leading vaccination rates, [and] a stable level of spread, [WA] no longer risks a dramatic loss of life," she said.
Exactly what impact the changes will have on case and hospitalisation numbers was not outlined in the Chief Health Officer's advice, Ms Sanderson said, but she was confident it could be managed.
"We know that we can manage increased caseloads because they're not resulting in higher levels of hospitalisation and ICU, and that's the important numbers," she said.
But Ms Sanderson said the new "baseline" measures would be in place indefinitely.
"This will be the new normal for a while," she told reporters.
Ms Sanderson acknowledged there would still be some anxiety in the community and encouraged people with concerns about working in an office to discuss arrangements with their employer.
She said any decision to keep masks would be left up to individual employers.
"If you still want to wear a mask in certain settings, you absolutely can. Keep your mask on you just in case you find yourself needing one," she said.
The relaxed rules come as WA recorded eight COVID deaths and 6,711 new cases on Tuesday, with a record 11 people in intensive care units among 249 in hospital.
However, Ms Sanderson said the number of people in ICU was just a tenth of what modelling had predicted, and the state had done better than expected, thanks to the government's "careful and cautious" approach".
WA has yet to top 10,000 cases a day — the most cases so far were recorded on March 29, when 9,754 people tested positive.
There are 44,305 active cases in the state, down from a top of 54,064 on April 1.
Premier urges business support
In a video message posted to social media from isolation, Mr McGowan thanked healthcare workers and all West Australians for achieving what he described as the best outcomes anywhere in the world.
“It doesn’t mean that we’re fully out of the pandemic,” he said.
“But it does mean the baseline measures in place are going to be much reduced, have much less impact on people, but still provide that core level of safety.”
Mr McGowan also encouraged people to continue using common sense, to wear a mask if they chose, and to support local businesses.
"A lot of them have suffered over the course of the last few months, in fact the last couple of years, and your support is crucial to making sure they can continue to prosper and be successful,” he said.
Doctors express concern
The head of the Australian Medical Association in WA was much less enthused by the changes, saying it was difficult to know whether they were being made too soon.
"We can only hope that the Chief Health Officer is actually saying that this is the right thing to do, because at the end of March the government didn't follow the Chief Health Officer's advice," Mark Duncan-Smith said.
"I am greatly concerned that we may be going too soon, given that our three-day average is only 600 less than what it was at our previous peak at the end of March.
"But only time will tell and we'll find out in the next week or two."
He also encouraged people to continue wearing a mask, if they wanted to, in a bid to help reduce the spread.
Given other states have seen increases in case numbers after easing restrictions, Dr Duncan-Smith called on the government to be prepared to reintroduce rules if the need arose.
"There is no doubt that reducing the mask mandate will lead to increased hospitalisations and [an] increased number of deaths," he said.
"What the McGowan government is gambling on [is that] it won't be too many."
State of emergency 'still necessary'
Opposition Leader Mia Davies welcomed the changes, but questioned why the government had not provided a pathway out of the state of emergency WA remains under.
"It leaves inconsistencies in relation to vaccination status for employment, which will cause concern for people," she said.
"They've done everything that's been asked of them over the last two years and we have a highly vaccinated community."
When asked about WA's state of emergency, Ms Sanderson said the government did not have a date in mind for when it might be lifted.
She said it was still necessary to maintain a number of restrictions, including workplace vaccination rules.
Earlier this month, Mr McGowan indicated the state of emergency would likely remain until at least the middle of the year, based on advice he received from Police Commissioner and state emergency coordinator Chris Dawson.
