Australia to end travel ban in pivot to live with Covid-19

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said travel restrictions would be lifted for fully vaccinated Australian citizens and permanent residents, who would be able to leave and return to the country without permission, as needed now. They will also be allowed to quarantine at home for seven days, while existing rules require returning travelers to pay thousands of dollars to quarantine in government hotels or camps for two weeks.

Travel restrictions for international students, skilled expatriates and eventually tourists will be relaxed later. Mr Morrison said next year for some of those groups could probably be soon.

“The time has come for the Australian people to give their lives back,” Mr Morrison said.

Australia has largely closed its border to tourists and has banned its citizens from visiting for the past 18 months, although those who need to travel urgently for personal or work reasons are exempt. can apply for. The government also put a cap on how many citizens could return, given limited capacity in its hotel-quarantine system, making it difficult for some migrants to go home. An experiment with a travel bubble with New Zealand has often been interrupted by the outbreak of Covid-19.

Mr Morrison said the easing of border closures is in line with the country’s four-stage COVID-19 exit strategy that the leaders of Australian states agreed on earlier in the year. The plan calls for the resumption of international travel in the third phase, when 80% of the adult population has been fully vaccinated.

Mr Morrison said about 80% of the adult population has received one dose of the vaccine and 55% have received two. He said the 80% fully immunized limit is expected to be reached next month, prompting the resumption of international travel.

Unvaccinated Australians will still be subject to restrictions when the 80% threshold is reached, including requiring quarantine in government hotels and how many people are allowed back into the country.

Travel restrictions could soon ease in some parts of the country, depending on the pace of vaccinations and whether state leaders feel comfortable opening their borders. The leaders of the states of Queensland and Western Australia, where there is low community transmission of the virus, have indicated they may wait until more people are vaccinated to allow unrestricted travel.

Health experts credit the strict border closures at the start of the pandemic to helping contain the spread of the virus. But border closures have not completely stopped the highly contagious delta version of the virus. Delta outbreaks have infected tens of thousands of Australians and killed dozens over the past few months. Australia’s two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, and its capital, Canberra, are battling the outbreak and closed to buy time to get more people vaccinated.

Australia’s vaccine rollout got off to a slow start due to supply-chain issues and concerns about the rare blood clots associated with the AstraZeneca plc vaccine, which unlike others can be manufactured in Australia. But the rollout has accelerated in recent weeks after Australia received additional doses of the Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE vaccine from countries such as Poland, Singapore and the United Kingdom.

Australia’s travel ban has cost its airlines billions of dollars, including major carrier Qantas Airways Ltd, while the country’s No. 2 carrier, Virgin Australia, filed the equivalent of bankruptcy last year. Thousands of airline workers are still on leave. The ban also devastated Australia’s tourism sector, a major industry in some parts of the country.

The border reopening is expected to be coming sooner. Qantas was selling international tickets for mid-December, assuming border restrictions would not ease by then. On Friday, the airline said it would resume flights from Sydney to London and Los Angeles by November 14.

“This rapid restart is great news,” said Alan Joyce, chief executive of Qantas. “It also means we can get more people back to work as soon as we can.”

Others said more should be done to kick-start the travel sector. The International Air Transport Association, an airline group, said the requirement to quarantine at home should also be removed for vaccinated passengers who test negative before departure for Australia. Many analysts say it could take years for international travel to Australia to reach pre-pandemic levels.

IATA’s regional vice president for Asia-Pacific, Philip Goh, said: “The international travel recovery will be silent and restrained as long as the quarantine is in place.” “Many major states—the US, Canada, European states—have removed quarantine requirements for international arrivals. Australia needs to work towards a similar approach.”