Virgin Australia's chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka has compared COVID-19 to the flu and says that international borders should be reopened even if it means "some people may die".

“COVID will be part of the community,” she told a business lunch in Brisbane on Monday.

“We will become sick with COVID and it won’t put us in hospital, and it won’t put people into dire straits because we’ll have a vaccine.

“Some people may die, but it will be way smaller than with the flu.

“We’re forgetting the fact that we’ve learnt how to live with lots of viruses and challenges over the years and we’ve got to learn how to live with this.”

More than 3.3 million people are estimated to have died since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

A Virgin Australia Group spokesman later said that the airline would continue to work closely with state and federal governments to support the safety of the community.

“We agree with state and federal leaders that eradication of COVID-19 cannot be the goal for our country,” he said.

“The question is not if but when we will be sufficiently vaccinated to protect our people and our hospital system to open our international borders.

“We must learn to live with COVID-19 in the community in a way that protects the health and safety of our people, but also opens Australia up to the rest of the world.”

Brett Sutton, Victorian chief health officer, said that Australia needs to accept there would be cases of COVID-19 after borders reopened.

“We need to somehow communicate to the public that we’ve gotten to a place of complacency because we’ve driven transmission to zero but we will face newly emerging transmission, and a critical juncture where we need to make a call on letting it run,” he said.