As Western Australia's hard border falls for the first time in nearly 700 days, Premier Mark McGowan says he cannot guarantee it is gone for good.
With a double-dose vaccination rate of 96.5 per cent and the third dose rate at 64.6 per cent, Mr McGowan said the state was well prepared.
But he told 7.30 he could not rule out the border being used again for pandemic management in the future.
"It's been done before, back in the Spanish influenza," Mr McGowan said.
"If there is another pandemic, the High Court has ruled that these things are available, and they work.
"Every state in Australia did it. We all did it at various points in time.
Mr McGowan said he thought it was unlikely hard borders would be needed again during the current pandemic, but would not rule that out either.
"I think it is unlikely, but I can't rule it out if some ultra-deadly variant comes along and we want to save lives, I can't rule it out," he said.
WA's 'soft landing' achieved
Catherine Bennett, the chair in epidemiology at Deakin University, said WA's border restrictions had become redundant and it would be very unlikely any state would need to reinstate border restrictions.
"It is likely the last of it in the current pandemic," she said.
"It would only be a last resort if we had a particular variant of concern and were sure that it was only in one part of the country that you might mount an argument to restrict movement domestically, in order to contain and manage locally."
Professor Bennett said WA's Premier would likely achieve the "soft landing" out of the pandemic he had been aiming for.
"We already saw how holding back Omicron by a couple of weeks in South Australia and Tasmania, allowing them to get the boosters that bit higher, both helped dampen the peak and saw fewer in hospital also," she said.
Reflecting on the past two years since the border went up, Mr McGowan said he could not think of much he would have done differently.
"We put in place measures that protected the state," Mr McGowan said.
"We have had two people acquire the virus and pass away here, we've had the strongest economic outcomes of any state in Australia and probably any state in the world.
"And we've had the best health outcomes of anywhere in the world.
"Admittedly, at times, it has been difficult for people. And some people have missed out on family reunions and the like.
But the border has also come at a great cost to many people.
'All we wanted was to go and be with our son'
The Melbourne-based family of Jordan Grace, a 20-year-old rugby player who died in Perth in November, was unable to fly to Perth and identify him straight away.
Steve and Katie Grace, who were both vaccinated, wanted to fly to Perth to collect Jordan's body and his belongings after they found out he had taken his own life.
Victoria was classified as an 'extreme risk' at the time, which meant any travellers approved under a compassionate exemption would still be required to quarantine for two weeks.
But with a funeral to organise, and their other children in Melbourne, they felt two weeks of quarantine was not an option and they declined.
"All we wanted was to go and be with our son, go and grab all of his things, and bring him home with us," Mr Grace said.
"And start that grieving process. Because if you can't start that process, the grieving becomes two, three-fold."
Mr Grace said he wondered whether his son – who died a couple of days before his 21st birthday – might still be alive if the hard border had not existed and Jordan's family had been able to see him.
"If we were able to fly over there for his 21st and spend time with him things might have been different.
"Knowing that he might have been home with us for Christmas. It might have changed things, you know?"
Jordan's 19-year-old sister Isabella and her mother Katie answered the door the night police came with the news of his death.
She said the border restrictions made an awful situation much more difficult.
"All we wanted was to have him back here," Isabella said.
"You would think in this situation, that you couldn't need any more compassion."
Mr McGowan said he felt that authorities had treated people compassionately throughout the course of the hard border.
"There's been lots of cases where the authorities work with families to try and resolve issues when they arise and try and make sure we do what we can to assist them in those often very difficult and terrible situations," he said.
"We have a team of people that work very hard, both police and health, that have managed hundreds if not thousands of those [compassionate exemption] cases over the course of the last two years.
"You've got to remember the alternative was there [have] been many thousands of people die in New South Wales and Victoria.
"That was what we were trying to protect ourselves against.
"And making these decisions was not something I ever expected I would be put in that position [to make].
"But I did the best I could."
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