Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy have given an update after Thursday's National Cabinet meeting.

Among the updates were new announcements for foreign aid, a parliamentary trial week and what Australia needs to do before we're on the road out.

Here are some of the key points.

The unemployment rate

The Prime Minister pointed out the latest figures for the unemployment rate are largely based on the middle of March, before restrictions came into full swing across the economy.

"While that figure is welcome, we know that is the best figure we will see for some time," he said.

"We do need to prepare ourselves as a country for some very sobering news on the economic front in months ahead."

"We are working on that road out and we are working on that road ahead in the recovery piece that will see people getting back into work and Australia getting through this."

Parliament trial week in May

Parliament was due to return in August but Mr Morrison announced it'll return sooner than that.

"We will be looking to have a trial week of Parliament in May and that would be returning to the normal business of Parliament," he said.

"It is my hope that we might then be able to establish a pattern beyond that which is workable."

But exactly how that'll physically look with social distancing rules still in place is still unclear.

On the road out: Testing, tracing and response

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 3 minutes 20 seconds 3 m 20 s Scott Morrison says there are three criteria to be met before distancing measures can be relaxed.

As we head to recovery, the Prime Minister stated there are three important benchmarks we need to meet first.

The first of those, he said, is a "more extensive surveillance or sentinel testing regime."

"We need an even broader testing regime than we have at this point."

"We have one of, if not the, most extensive testing regime in the world today but we need to do even better than that to make sure that we can have greater confidence that when we move to a lesser restriction environment, we can have confidence we can identify any outbreaks very, very quickly and respond to them."

The second part is making sure we have an even greater tracing capability than we have now.

Mr Morrison said state tracing would need to be lifted.

"If we can get that in place, get the tracing capability up from where it is, that will give us more options and Australians, more freedoms."

The third is local response capability.

Mr Morrison said this is already taking place in north-west Tasmania, where there was an outbreak of the virus.

"[The] Australian Defence Force is working together with state authorities and have been moving very quickly to contain that outbreak."

"There will be other outbreaks in other parts of the country and in all states and territories.

"We need that ability to move very fast to be able to lock down an outbreak where it occurs and make sure it does not transmit more broadly within the community," he said.

Elective surgery may return

The National Cabinet will consider bringing back elective surgery next week on Tuesday.

"We will consider the issue of elective surgery, which could see some immediate return in that area," Mr Morrison said.

If a decision to allow elective procedures is made next week, that could be big news for some IVF patients, whose treatments were suspended when the pause on surgeries was announced.

Bond markets

Australia has raised quite a bit in cash on bond markets recently.

The Prime Minister said $13 billion was raised on Wednesday on a syndicated offer.

He said since March 20, $28 billion had been raised by the Australian Office of Financial Management.

More broadly, Mr Morrison said global markets were finding a "new normal".

"That relative stability — and everything is relative now — will depend very much on continuing to achieve a stable health outcome," he said.

"Australia is well-placed on the ground as well as being able to set out forward economic plans."

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Achieving growth on the other side

A big part of National Cabinet's agenda on Thursday was looking at the road out of the virus and back to a world where government isn't the main supporter of the economy.

The Prime Minister mentioned work done by the Grattan Institute which showed Australia's fiscal response to the crisis, as a percentage of our economy, was one of the best in the world.

"[The Institute] also highlighted … that any sense of business as usual when it comes to the policy framework we had at the election will need to be reconsidered on the other side to make sure we can achieve growth that will be necessary for our economy to get people back into work, economy back on track," he said.

"It will be a different world on the other side of the virus and there will be many challenges."

He said National Cabinet was very aware of the challenge facing the country but that was a "discussion for another day" further down the line.

On schools

As well as how we transition to the "new normal" post coronavirus, National Cabinet has also come up with a list of seven principles that each State and Territory has agreed to about how to deal with schools.

The principles aren't hard-and-fast rules but touch on the need for children of essential services workers to be able to still go in person, that flexible learning is a good option for everyone else and that schools should follow the safety protocols of other workplaces.

"The health advice has been consistent that for children, schools are a safe space," Mr Morrison said in his address.

"Where the confusion arises is that teachers are more at risk in the staffroom than they are in the classroom when it comes to how the health advice plays out and the impact of this virus on children as opposed to teachers."

"That means that we need to have proper arrangements in place for teachers and other staff in schools obviously to protect their work environment."

How long will economic rescue measures be in place

This is a question that has come up more than once since the government announced more than $200 billion in economic stimulus measures, including the JobKeeper program and expanding JobSeeker (formerly known as Newstart).

The JobKeeper scheme has a definitive end date — 27 September 2020 — and, based on what the Prime Minister said on Thursday, this is the end point of the six months when it comes to economic measures.

"I have always considered the six months the period in which we have been operating and will operate these lifeline measures in the economy, which is JobSeeker and JobKeeper," he said.

"We have bought that time to find the road out."

But as for all the other measures, like rent relief and business support, Scott Morrison indicated that they would stay for as long as need be, which, you guessed it, is all based on our virus numbers.

"We would expect there would be restrictions running over that entire 6-month period but the degree of those and how much they can be relaxed or changed over that period, that would depend on the circumstances, the health and economic advice at the time," he said.

Assistance to developing countries

Mr Morrison said the G20 met on Wednesday night. He said this was an initiative that Australia had recommended some weeks ago.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg also joined the meeting of finance ministers and central bankers.

Mr Morrison said they agreed G20 nations would be moving to "provide relief from a deferral of payments to loans to developing countries."

One in particular is Papua New Guinea, which will receive a $US300 million ($476 million) loan.

"Those payments will be deferred to the end of the year and they are obviously pleased with that decision," Mr Morrison said.

Not like New Zealand or Sweden

The PM stressed that Australia remains in the suppression phase and not in eradication mode.

"These are not the approaches we are following in Australia, we are not at the Sweden end or the New Zealand end.

"When it comes to how we approach things, our data and information show that in that phase we are doing relatively very well, especially over countries that are using even more extreme forms of lockdown."

He went on to state we can't overstate our success but said it's pleasing to know, "it is estimated more than half of those who have contracted the coronavirus in Australia have overcome it."