Coronavirus: Australia to reopen border for vaccinated residents from November; Japan’s state of emergency ends | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3150825/coronavirus-japans-state-emergency-ends-cases-fall
Coronavirus: Australia to reopen border for vaccinated residents from November; Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Friday said the country would begin to reopen its borders next month, 18 months after citizens were banned from travelling overseas without permission.
Morrison said vaccinated Australians would be able to return home and travel overseas “within weeks” as 80 per cent vaccination targets are met.
For the last 560 days, countless international flights have been grounded, and overseas travel has slowed to a trickle. Families have been split across continents, an estimated 30,000 nationals were stranded overseas and foreign residents were stuck in the country unable to see friends or relatives. More than 100,000 requests to enter or leave the country were denied in the first five months of this year alone, according to Department of Home Affairs data.“The time has come to give Australians their life back. We’re getting ready for that, and Australia will be ready for take-off, very soon,” Morrison said. He also announced that inoculated residents would be able to home quarantine for seven days on their return, dodging the current mandatory and costly 14-day hotel quarantine.The exact timing of the border reopenings will depend on when Australian states reach their 80 per cent vaccination targets, and crucially on local political approval.The most populous state of New South Wales currently has 64 per cent of those aged over 16 fully vaccinated, and has indicated it will hit 70 and 80 per cent targets this month.Australian flag carrier Qantas welcomed the decision, announcing it would restart flights to London and Los Angeles on November 14.But most Australian states – notably West Australia and Queensland – still have no widespread community transmission, are maintaining a “Covid-zero” strategy.Responding to the announcement, WA Premier Mark McGowan said he did not expect international travel to return to his state until 2022, and would not set a date for lifting even domestic borders.
McGowan described life in Melbourne under the current lockdown as a “bleak, dim, hard, dark place” compared to a “pre-Covid” lifestyle in his state. He shrugged off concerns that it could mean Sydneysiders would more easily travel to Paris than Perth. “If that means in the interim, we don’t have mass deaths. We don’t have huge dislocation in our economy,” he said. “Well then, I think the choice is clear; we wait till it’s safe.”
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