In years to come, Prime Minister Scott Morrison's address to the nation on Friday might be remembered as that first step.

Almost seven weeks after Mr Morrison announced the extraordinary closure of all "non-essential services" to slow the spread of COVID-19, the PM says it is now time to start rebooting our economy.

The three-step plan revealed on Friday begins with "baby steps", as Mr Morrison put it, including the partial reopening of cafes and restaurants, and the second and third stages will only proceed following thorough investigation of the impacts along the way.

It's up to the states to then implement the plan, and on Sunday NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced cafes and restaurants will be allowed to re-open for up to 10 patrons and five people will be able to visit another person's home from next Friday.

Ms Berejiklian said the changes were designed to "allow NSW to fire up the economy, while allowing more personal freedoms".

At a state and federal level, it has been a mix of good planning, good policy and good luck that has got Australia to the point where it can be one of the first countries to start its journey out of the virus vault, but we can't fool ourselves.

Health and government officials have made it clear that the virus is still in our communities and once we start mixing more with each other, the number of cases will start to rise again.

As a result, social distancing is still a must as we delicately balance engaging in a somewhat normal life while there's still no vaccine.

There will be more outbreaks and, sadly, more deaths, but our hospitals and health services are now much better prepared and better resourced to meet those challenges than they were two months ago.

As the PM said on Friday, though, "we cannot allow the fear of going backwards to stop us going forwards".

Australia has had the advantage of seeing the devastating results of mistakes that have been made overseas and, hopefully, the wisdom to learn from them.

We're the envy of many nations right now, but we can't afford to become complacent.

The first battle in our war against the coronavirus has been fought and won, but there are many more steps to take along the way.