Australians will have to live with coronavirus restrictions for at least another four weeks, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said, as the Government begins to chart a path out of the measures.

Key points: Australia will continue with social distancing restrictions for at least another four weeks

Australia will continue with social distancing restrictions for at least another four weeks Mr Morrison has set out benchmarks that will need to be met before restrictions ease

Mr Morrison has set out benchmarks that will need to be met before restrictions ease Parliament will likely return for a "trial week" of sittings in May

Mr Morrison said National Cabinet's focus had begun to turn to "the road out" of the crisis, but the restrictions would need to stay in place until three criteria were met.

So-called sentinel testing to detect COVID-19 within the community would need to be expanded, as would the Government's ability to trace the movements of infected people.

'We need to lift that to an industrial capability," he said.

Greater ability to respond to local outbreaks would also be needed, Mr Morrison said.

Until those three benchmarks were met, Mr Morrison said the restrictions would remain.

"If you're going to move to an environment where there are fewer restrictions, then you need these three things in place," he said.

"National Cabinet agreed today that we will use the next four weeks to ensure that we can get these in place."

Mr Morrison said some states had gone beyond the "baseline" restrictions outlined by National Cabinet, and that those states could look at winding back their more extensive measures more quickly.

Experts warn 'normal' is a way off yet

The epidemiologists behind some of the modelling used by the Federal Government warned it would be "a very long time" before things could return to normal.

Jodie McVernon, the director of epidemiology at Melbourne's Doherty Institute, said even when people could begin to gather again, some restrictions would need to stay in place.

"The real danger is this 'back to life as normal' discussion, because that cannot happen for a very long time," Professor McVernon said.

"I think we just need to get that in our consciousness as a society.

"As we go back to mixing, it will still be with physical distancing in place, it will be with increased hygiene measures in place, it will be with reduced group sizes in place, and all of those things will continue to reduce the risk."

Community outbreaks still a risk: CMO

Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said the fact Australia was recording fewer than 50 new infections per day was precisely why social distancing restrictions should not be lifted in the near future.

"If we relax the distancing measures that are stopping or reducing that community transmission, that will inevitably lead to some more outbreaks of community transmission," he said.

"Unless we are prepared as a nation to detect those outbreaks really early and get on top of them and control them and isolate the cases and quarantine the contacts, we could end up with large community outbreaks.

"That could lead to situations like we've all seen every night on the nightly news in high-income countries with good health systems like the USA and the UK."

For weeks, the Government has described Australia as being in the "suppression" phase of managing the virus and Mr Morrison said that would remain the Government's strategy.

"We are not in an eradication mode nor are we in the other mode where we would just see some sort of herd immunity approach, these are not the approaches we are following in Australia," he said.

"We are not at the Sweden end, nor are we the New Zealand end when it comes to how we're approaching things."

Parliament was not expected to resume until August after being put off due to coronavirus measures, but Mr Morrison said he wanted to have a "trial week" where Parliament would sit next month.

He said he would negotiate the plans with Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese, who has been calling for more regular sittings of Parliament.