Victoria will relax a raft of COVID-19 rules, including scrapping compulsory seven-day isolation for close contacts and its controversial "vaccinated economy".
Close contacts will be exempt from isolation, primary school students can ditch the masks and unvaccinated patrons allowed to return to venues.
A raft of rules will ease from 11.59pm on Friday after the state passed the peak of its second Omicron wave, Health Minister Martin Foley announced on Wednesday:
"We know that there will be a long plateauing and tail to this BA.2 Omicron sub-variant wave.
"But what we know is that we've passed the peak and we are able to look to this group of sensible measures being able to take us into a still-challenging winter."
Under the changes, close contacts of confirmed COVID-19 cases will no longer have to quarantine if they wear a mask indoors, avoid sensitive settings and return five negative rapid antigen tests over the seven-day period.
Confirmed cases must continue to self-isolate for the full seven days but will be exempt from testing and quarantine for 12 weeks after their positive result, up from eight.
Similar changes were unveiled in NSW following a push from business groups for the isolation rule to be relaxed to ease ongoing staff shortages.
Other Victorian-specific restrictions have also been tweaked, including the removal of mandatory masks for students in grades three to six as well as workers in childcare, retail and indoor events with more than 30,000 people.
Masks will remain compulsory on public transport, in airports and health, aged care and justice settings, although there will be no limit on hospital visits.
In keeping with the sweeping changes, patrons and workers will no longer have to prove their vaccination status or check-in when entering pubs, restaurants, movie theatres and sports venues.
Premier Daniel Andrews previously said the state's vaccinated economy would remain in place until at least April and possibly throughout the entirety of 2022.
But it's not the end of worker vaccine mandates altogether, with double- and triple-dose requirements retained for key industries such as healthcare, food distribution, police, emergency services and education.
When the state's new pandemic-specific legislation came into effect in January, power for changing Victoria's COVID-19 restrictions was shifted from Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton to Mr Foley.
Professor Sutton said he has recommended a transition away from vaccine mandates to workplaces setting their own policy:
"Some of them will no doubt lift those mandates and allow their workforces to attend work without a vaccination requirement, but some of them may well land on a policy that has an ongoing mandate.
"That should be worked out industry by industry."
Victoria's seven-day COVID-19 case average remains below 10,000, despite the state recording 10,628 new infections and 14 deaths on Wednesday.
Prof Sutton said he believed the Omicron wave had plateaued, with daily infections falling 10 per cent over the past week:
"I think today's a blip. It's going to be a long tail and a slow decline."
Opposition health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier welcomed the changes but expressed disappointment it had taken "so long".
"Close contact isolation rules should have been eased weeks ago. These decisions have had real impacts on families, on children and on businesses."
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