Australia's coronavirus restrictions are easing

After more than a month of stay-at-home orders and progressively stricter rules around social movements, some Australian states and territories this week announced an easing of their coronavirus restrictions.

Depending on where you live, it means this weekend you might be able to partake in some retail therapy at the shops, visit your mates, or even go fishing and camping.

With the coronavirus threat at different levels across Australian jurisdictions, some governments have decided to keep all their restrictions in place, others are slightly taking their foot off the pedal, while one has gone hard in winding back its measures.

These are all the things the ACT government now says you can and can't do:

The coronavirus-free ACT, which on Thursday became the first Australia jurisdiction to neutralise COVID-19 by reaching no active cases, has no formalised plan to wind back restrictions.

Public school students returned to remote learning this week, with a number of 'hub' schools open to provide supervision to children of essential workers.

Restrictions in the ACT are already more lenient than those in surrounding NSW, something Chief Minister Andrew Barr previously suggested could be an issue if the territory was to ease restrictions further.

"Were we to reopen bars and restaurants, but they remained closed in NSW, then we would get quite an influx of people into the territory and that would lead to an increased risk," he said.

Instead, Mr Barr suggested the most likely early easing of restrictions would be around public gatherings, going from a maximum of two people back up to 10.

That would allow things like small family gatherings and fitness boot camps to resume.