Advertisement The last time the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee – the panel of chief health officers that has steered the country through COVID-19 – met face-to-face was almost exactly a year ago in February 2020 to hammer out a plan for dealing with the looming pandemic. Soon, the states’ top doctors will meet in person again, most likely in Canberra, to detail the next phase: the planned six-month rollout of multiple COVID-19 vaccines and “what that will mean in terms of how we handle outbreaks”. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. Credit:Christopher Pearce/Darrian Traynor Certainty is something Australians crave after a year of restrictions, snap lockdowns and border closures that have varied wildly between states and haven’t always appealed to common sense.