I was particularly concerned by two headlines in last Friday's Daily Advertiser. One read "Easing restrictions could begin within weeks", and the other "Staggered school return" and "The state's peak teachers' union warned against a hasty return to the classroom".

Nothing could be worse, for we need to keep the restrictions for as long as it takes.

So that doesn't mean the NRL bouncing back as early as late May, or NSW trialing an easing of the restrictions - as Premier Gladys Berejiklian has suggested - or, as US President Donald Trump is now saying, ending the regulations in May.

Talk of an early easing of restrictions is contrary to all medical advice.

That has to be the voice we listen to and take notice of, rather than politicians touting for votes from the more gullible elements of our population.

Thankfully, some are noting caveats before there is any easing. Health experts are urging us to be patient, saying the number of new coronavirus cases in NSW will need to remain stable for at least another fortnight before any restrictions are wound back.

Dr Stephen Duckett, a health economist with the Grattan Institute, said the measures should remain in place until the number of new cases dropped to the single digits, and then held firm.

"The corner has certainly been turned but it's too early to say when it will be safe to lift the lid," Dr Duckett said."

Naturally enough, the business sector is anxious to see signs the government has an exit strategy.

Business NSW chief executive Stephen Cartwright said it was still "far from certain how much longer the full restrictions will be needed before the medical experts would sanction such changes."

Pandemic expert Adam Kamradt-Scott, from the University of Sydney's Centre for International Security Studies, said the government's approach to winding back the restrictions would depend on what strategy was guiding its response.

"If you're going for zero transmission rate, you need to get it down to zero and keep it there for an extended period," Associate Professor Kamradt-Scott said.

"But if the government is willing to accept that a small level of cases is OK because they are manageable, then yes, probably in about three or four weeks you might be able to see a relaxation of these measures."

Raina MacIntyre, head of the biosecurity program at the UNSW's Kirby Institute, said the decrease in new daily cases was due to the overseas travel bans and quarantining measures, not to the limits on gatherings or stay-at-home orders that were implemented on March 31.

For her part, Ms Berejiklian opened the door to a potential easing-off with extreme reticence this week, dodging questions about what isolation measures may be under review.

She spoke of not wanting to raise expectations but said there was a chance in the coming weeks "to look at some relaxation", but only if the health experts, who were assessing the situation on a monthly basis, "deem it appropriate".

As a sobering addendum, she added: "Every time you relax a restriction, more people will get sick. More people will die."

These thoughts took me to another piece of political propaganda, which was Prime Minister Morrison touting that the economy would "snap back" as soon as the crisis eased. I guess it is to be expected from someone whose real-world job used to be in advertising, before he was sacked.

But such false optimism is very misleading, and Treasury should have been consulted before the PM peddled more false hopes.

As Greg Jericho pointed out in The Guardian Australia, the economic recovery from coronavirus will be slow, rather than a "snap back".

Hopefully, that will allow time for sensible heads to prevail.

We need to implement a recovery that does not repeat the mistakes of the past half-century, when neo-liberal unregulated capitalism ruled.

Instead, we must replace it with a green new deal that deals effectively with climate change and social justice, thereby saving the planet and its people.