The increased access for the drugs Lagevrio and Paxlovid to all Australians over 70 years, or people with certain risk factors, comes as health authorities cite great concern about the current dominant subvariants in circulation and people over 30 years can get access to a fourth dose of a COVID vaccine.

The anti-viral access is also open from Monday for people over 50 years with two or more risk factors, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged over 30 with two or more risk factors and anyone aged 18 or over who is immunocompromised.

The dominant COVID strains led Australia's expert medical committee on Friday cut the official post-infection isolation exemption period from 12 weeks to 28 days.

Federal Health Minister Mark Butler expects case numbers will continue to climb for some weeks yet as it is still relatively early in winter.

"It's increasingly clear that they're able to evade the immunity that you might have got from having previously had COVID," he told reporters in Adelaide.

"We're seeing people who might only have had COVID several weeks ago being reinfected with BA.4 and BA.5."

"Still we're seeing around 300 people every week lose their life. This is still a very serious pandemic."

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Australia has now surpassed 10,300 deaths and currently several hundred people are dying every week while there are more than 400 people are in hospital with complications.

The anti-viral tablets or capsules can help stop infection from becoming severe but need to be started early after testing positive.

"Up until now, it was very, very difficult to get access to these medicines in spite of the fact that the former government to their credit, bought 1.3 million doses of those medicines," Mr Butler said.

"But up until now, they've essentially been sitting on shelves in warehouses instead of out there doing their job to prevent severe disease.

"This will do enormous things to reduce the incidence of severe disease and relieve pressure on our hospital systems that are under such enormous pressure right now."

Normally costing more than $1000, they will be available for $6.80 for concession card holders and around $40 for everyone else.