The most important message to emerge from Friday's much less volatile than expected national cabinet meeting was that Australia, despite a not inconsiderable degree of panic and alarm, handled the holiday season quarantine hotel escapes well.
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The Prime Minister singled out the responses in both Queensland and Western Australia for high praise: "The responses we are getting from the public, including in places like Western Australia or Queensland where there hadn't been those types of instances as regularly as we've seen in, say, NSW or Victoria, they have been [well] managed, and we were very pleased about that".
As of yesterday there were no cases of community transmission, despite the emergence of significantly more virulent strains, anywhere in the country. Only nine people were being treated for COVID-19 in hospital. None of these required intensive care.
Australia's recent successes, as the PM was quick to point out, are cause to hope that as the vaccine is rolled out it may be possible to handle future outbreaks in a very different way. This is because of the demonstrated success the immunisations have had in reducing serious illness and death both during trials and in the field.
Emerging news that the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is expected to do the heavy lifting in Australia's inoculation campaign, has shown signs of being able to contain the spread of COVID-19 is even more cause for cautious optimism.
While it is still not known if the Pfizer jab has the same effect, the government's success in obtaining additional doses is also worth celebrating.
As the PM said, it may be possible, six months or so from now, to regard COVID-19 "in a very similar way to other viruses in the community" such as influenza.
When that happens the emphasis would not be on case numbers but on hospitalisations and ICU admissions.
While the proponents of relocating all quarantine into regional areas were apparently over-ruled, the proposal to expand the capacity of the Howard Springs facility near Darwin seems to have been a sensible and popular compromise.
The mooted establishment of a similar facility at Toowoomba seems unlikely to gain traction given significant community and federal government opposition.
Both the Howard Springs development and the news that Queensland and NSW will revert to their original intake levels on February 15, is great news as well.
Mr Morrison reiterated that "it was agreed once again that the return of Australian residents is the priority, in terms of arrivals to Australia" and that "we must remember that our borders are shut" - unless of course you are a tennis player, celebrity actor or have some other kind of exemption.
The only way to prevent hotel quarantine outbreaks would be to stop bringing people back altogether and, as Gladys Berejiklian said on Friday morning, that just isn't going to happen.
Australia, in short has managed well, is continuing to manage well, and the national situation will improve further moving forward.
That said, as JobKeeper is wound back the federal government is expecting states and territories to start delivering increased levels of localised stimulus moving forward.
It was good to see that despite media reports Friday's meeting would be fiery and potentially divisive it appears to have been mature, collegiate and professional. That is what Australians expect, and deserve, from their leaders at times like this.
