Australian leaders to plan ‘gentle steps’ out of lockdown, by Elias Viontay.

Mr Hunt said Australia is pursuing a “continuous suppression of the virus”, which will include lowering infection numbers, expanding testing, analysing sewage for outbreaks, and responding efficiently to outbreaks with localised lockdowns similar to the response in north west Tasmania this week.

“It’s highly unlikely that you can completely eradicate the virus, that just wouldn’t be an honest statement in a country of 25 million. But we are down to just over 40 cases a day at the moment,” Mr Hunt told Sky News.

Mr Hunt said he “won’t make a false promise” that Australia is past the worst of COVID-19, “but we are in a position that I think overwhelmingly the rest of the world would want to be in”. …

“But we have to be careful, we don’t want a second wave, we’ve seen that in other successful countries. So the more we’re able to stabilise now, the greater freedoms we’ll have later on.”