WHO's warning as NSW and Victoria announce raft of restriction changes

The World Health Organisation has issued a warning to countries removing COVID-19 restrictions, warning it is "premature" in some places.

The warning comes after New South Wales and Victoria both announced yesterday they would remove a raft of public health measures.

Density limits in hospitality venues have been scrapped, people will no longer need to check-in at supermarkets and retail venues, and dance floors are officially back in both states.

READ MORE: NSW's changes explained

Announcing the change in NSW's restrictions Premier Dominic Perrottet declared the pandemic is "moving to an endemic phase."

However, Dr Michael Ryan, Executive Director WHO Health Emergencies programme is urging caution as many countries follow the same path.

READ MORE: Victoria's changes explained

"I'm a bit nervous right now that we're sort of just lifting everything," he said.

"If we get hit with another variant and we've already sort of abandoned all measures it's going to be really hard to put anything back in place.

"This idea that we're just going to abandon everything, I think is a very premature concept in many countries right now."

Dr Maria Van Kerkhove COVID-19 technical lead of the WHO Health Emergencies program agreed, and said it is "ill-advised to lift everything all at once".

"We just need to have countries to not do this all or nothing approach because it is confusing," she said.

"In some countries they're in a better position to be able to do that because they have higher levels of vaccination coverage, high levels of population-level immunity.

"They have the ability to adjust."

The warning comes after NSW recorded 9995 COVID-19 infections yesterday, and a further 14 deaths.

Victoria saw 8501 cases with a further nine lives lost.

Nationwide, 94.1 per cent of people aged 16 and over are fully vaccinated.