While health officials in some parts of the world deal with coronavirus death tolls that threaten to overwhelm morgues, Victoria's Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton is in a more fortunate position.

Strict social-distancing measures are starting to work and daily case numbers are on the way down.

"I'm in a pretty happy place," he told ABC Radio Melbourne.

But his current optimism about the state's coronavirus response comes with a frightening caveat.

The situation, he said, "is absolutely fragile".

"We could lose it in a heartbeat."

Professor Sutton joined Rafael Epstein to answer some of your questions about what is and isn't allowed in Victoria right now and where we go from here.

Among the questions was one that's split Victoria and other states such as New South Wales:

Will we ever know for sure if it's ok to play golf?

Victoria has directed all golf clubs and facilities to close, so golfing is off the cards until at least mid-May.

The problem Professor Sutton and his team face when considering which restrictions they can lift is that many of the restrictions were introduced in bundles, often within days of each other.

There's "reasonable confidence" the measures have reduced community transmission, but it's not yet clear which restrictions had the most impact.

"It's hard to tease out what it might mean to lift one of them on its own," Professor Sutton said.

But for some restrictions we may get "a reasonable idea" in a few weeks time.

"We'll have some data from other places in Europe that are starting to lift restrictions," Professor Sutton said.

"And we'll have better modelling to tell us."

Golf is not allowed under Victoria's stage 3 restrictions. ( ABC News: Jed Cooper )

Can I take my car to a mechanic or panel beater?

"The businesses that can legally operate are businesses that you can legally go to," Professor Sutton said.

"If you have to, if it's an essential service, then you can.

"But we don't want people going unless they have to. So it's not a case of nice to do, it's a case of need to do."

How long will restrictions continue in Victoria?

Sometimes it helps to have an end date in mind to keep us motivated to comply with the tough restrictions.

Unfortunately we can't give you that. No one can.

But Professor Sutton did provide his sports-mad state with ... let's call it ... a countdown to the quarter-time huddle.

It will probably be "at least four weeks" until any restrictions are lifted.

"We need to watch it for the time that this state of emergency is in place, which is another month," he said

"I think we can make a decision at that point in time.

"We'll have more information about community transmission and we'll have greater confidence about numbers being suppressed and being able to take those first measures at that point in time."

Surfing is still allowed for exercise provided you don't drive a long way to get to the beach. ( ABC News: Jane Cowan )

But remember, those first measures will only be relaxed if we continue to suppress the number of cases.

"It doesn't mean that things will change at that point in time, we obviously need to see how we're travelling, but I think that will be a natural point of review," Professor Sutton said.

"That will be a useful point in time when we've got a lot more data about new cases over that [restriction] period."

Does that mean we'll go back to stage 2 restrictions?

There's no guarantee the downward trajectory we're on will continue.

You only have to look at Tasmania's north-west to see how quickly a localised outbreak can get out of control.

But if the time does come to scale back some restrictions, it's unlikely to be a sudden leap — more like baby steps.

"It's going to be a trial and error and hopefully more trial than error," Professor Sutton said.

"We'll get some confidence that it's something you're able to do without losing control of the virus and then we'll go to the next step and assess again."

Sorry, this audio has expired COVID-19 herd immunity 'not an option', as coronavirus restrictions continue

Which restrictions will be lifted first?

In a time when people are craving certainty, you might not like Professor Sutton's response.

"Who knows," he said frankly.

"We need to find out what the modelling will tell us. We need to find out what is the best bang for buck.

"It might be schools returning to on-site learning. It might be people gathering in somewhat greater groups or gathering with other lower risk family members who have also been in isolation but it's not for me to make the call.

"I think we need to explore it over coming weeks."

Students returning to classrooms could be one of the first restrictions that are lifted. ( AAP: Paul Miller )

Is eradication still on the table as an option in Australia?

There was a general acceptance that while New Zealand was going down the path of eradicating the virus completely, Australia was too far gone to entertain that idea.

But Professor Sutton said it was still something he was discussing as a "potential strategy" with his colleagues.

"It's not out of the question," he said.

"There are a bunch of issues with it. There are a bunch of issues with whatever path we take."

National Cabinet will likely consider this in coming weeks, he said.

"We're not even sure we can achieve elimination. It might be that people without symptoms continue to transmit it so you think you've gotten rid of it but you haven't," he said.

"There are things we need to find out over the next few weeks about transmission, about people without symptoms who might be affected, and about our surveillance mechanisms to be able to assure ourselves of it."

How hard would it be to eradicate coronavirus in Australia?

"Really difficult," the Chief Health Officer said.

"You'd have to be really clear and confident in your surveillance and you'd have to be absolutely sure that it's not reintroduced into the country through any mechanism — on a cargo ship with a crew member or a deliberate release or any other mechanism because it would take off again."

Did you notice that phrase "deliberate release"?

What an utterly terrifying thought.

Even if Australia shuts its borders to travellers, we still need to get cargo in and out of the country. ( Supplied: Pexels )

What would eradication look like?

Professor Sutton said achieving and maintaining eradication would mean shutting down your border completely, or, only opening it to countries that were also achieving eradication.

"That might be New Zealand and China, but it's a really difficult prospect, it means not having a single case in the country," he said.

"You could probably keep your physical distancing in place until you get to that point."

But while it's not yet clear if eradication is a genuine possibility, it is a tempting prospect.

"The plus side of eradication is you can go back to normal life as long as you have that absolute assurance that you don't reintroduce it into the country," he said.

To help the intelligence-gathering mission, Victoria has expanded its testing regime to include anyone displaying symptoms of COVID-19.

But Karl from Eltham wanted to know:

Why not conduct whole-of-population random sampling to ascertain what the actual infection rate is?

Professor Sutton said Australia "might" go down that path, which he described as a taking a "snapshot in time" of a really significant portion of the population.

But it would require a national agreement.

"Every jurisdiction would need to have the capacity for all the reagents and the swabs and human resources to do [the testing]," he said.

"I understand Austria's done it, Iceland's done it … and I think that's a useful exercise."

Can we open the economy and just ask vulnerable people to isolate?

The UK tried this approach, Professor Sutton said.

They had 778 COVID-19 deaths yesterday.

"It's a really difficult prospect to just tell vulnerable people to stay isolated and it's been shown as virtually impossible to manage in terms of a strategy," he said.

"We can't just open up and then pretend that the most vulnerable, including those with chronic disease, play no part in society."

One of those vulnerable people, Kate from Point Cook, had cancer last year and her family have asked her not to leave the house.

She asked the Chief Health Officer:

Am I just deferring the inevitable? Are we all going to get coronavirus eventually?

Professor Sutton doesn't think so.

"We're not going down the pathway of having most of the population infected, that would be tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of deaths in Australia," he said.

"We are now getting to a point where we need to see what kind of restrictions we can maintain and accept as a society that stops this spreading across the country and infecting most, or all, of us."

He said even in parts of Europe and the US where the virus has gotten out of control, they're still not looking to have the entirety of their population infected over the next year or two.

"They're trying to keep a lid on the infections that they have," he said.

So no herd immunity means...we wait?

"Yes — we'll all remain susceptible and vulnerable to infection until there's a vaccine in place," Professor Sutton said.

"But what we're now saying is we've got enough suppression where we can have a think about how we manage that 'til a vaccine is in place."

He said health officials were increasingly turning their attention to the day they might be able to lift some restrictions, monitor the progress and adjust as necessary.

"It’s certainly not just the status quo for months and months," he said.

"It is a progressive relaxation and watching how transmission goes over that time."