Any expansion to what classifies an essential worker will be about managing risk and keeping Australian running amid widespread supply chain shortages, a leading epidemiologist says.
National cabinet will on Thursday discuss adding more industries and workers to the list of COVID-19 close contacts exempt from quarantine requirements.
Professor Catherine Bennett from Deakin University says the changes would not come from a starting point of zero risk and needed to be weighed up against the large number of critical workers being furloughed.
"People who might have had exposures won't necessarily go on to have an infection but at the moment are out of the workplace and that is causing this widespread disruption," she told the ABC ahead of Thursday's meeting.
"It's not going from zero risk ... it's actually saying we can select for people who are less likely to be infectious who can continue working if they have no symptoms."
People exposed to the virus at home will often already be at work while infectious before the original case is even identified, Prof Bennett said.
Ministers have flagged the possibility JobSeeker recipients could be deployed into workforces to help ease staff shortages.
A plan to increase the hours international students are able to work to 40 hours a fortnight is also being considered as a way to alleviate pressure on sectors hardest hit by the virus.
Deputy Labor Leader Richard Marles said it was important to look at every possible means get people back into the workforce to deal with staff shortages.
"But all of this should have been thought through in October, November last year when people were predicting that with opening up, it would be right now when we face the peak case numbers we are seeing," he told Sky News.
A plan on how students can safely return to schools amid rising cases will also be thrashed out by leaders.
Principles for how schools would reopen and stay open in the wake of outbreaks have been finalised by federal, state and territory officials, before being put to national cabinet on Thursday.
But the Australian Education Union expressed concern about how schools will go back with President Correna Haythorpe saying schools could become quite significant super-spreader environments.
"(A framework should) include remote learning and includes a situation where we might have to have a hybrid model which we have a particular school with high rates of infection," she told the ABC.
"It includes what we'll do if we have significant staff shortages."
Ms Haythorpe also called for priority access for teachers to rapid antigen and PCR tests so they would be able to test themselves quickly and conveniently.
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce says tests are free for vulnerable Australians and people who are struggling, but reiterated universally free tests would hit the taxpayer's hip pocket.
"This idea that everybody gets them for free, I don't know about that," he told the Nine Network.
"The money doesn't fall out of the air, we take it off your wages, salaries, businesses, to pay for them. It goes on the credit card and you pay for it later on."
As shortages of rapid tests continue, the government has placed an urgent tender for more than $60 million worth.
Five separate tenders were placed by the federal health department on Monday due to "extreme urgency or events unforeseen".
Mr Morrison previously said procuring rapid tests was a state responsibility.
Labor senator Katy Gallagher said the move demonstrated a lack of preparedness for the amount of rapid tests needed.
"How Scott Morrison could have left it until this week to order the rapid antigen tests needed beggars belief" Senator Gallagher told AAP.