Social distancing is holding new COVID-19 infection levels low enough to eliminate the virus from mainland Australia, new federal government modelling shows.

While the expert team behind the modelling has not estimated a date by which the virus could be defeated, they project it could be months away, rather than weeks.

Professor Jodie McVernon has been advising the government. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Yet loosening social distancing restrictions will inevitably lead to it returning and cases rising, researchers say, which means we would need to maintain such measures to keep the virus at bay, rather than return to life as normal.

The model suggests that every 10 people infected currently spread the virus to five more people, on average. At that level, the virus would eventually be unable to circulate and would die out within Australia.