GEIS-新闻详情

Australia will cut international arrivals by 50% to stop Covid-19 surge

2021-07-02 00:00:00.0 海峡时报-亚洲原网页

SYDNEY (BLOOMBERG) - Australia will cut international arrivals by 50 per cent in a bid to halt a surge in the delta-variant of the coronavirus that this week forced half the population into lockdown, as the government starts looking at creating a road-map out of the pandemic.

While the reduction of commercial-flight arrivals will take the pressure off the hotel-quarantine system, "that alone does not provide any fail-safe regarding any potential breaches" of the virus into the community, Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters in Canberra on Friday (July 2).

The cuts are expected to last until at least the end of the year, he said.

Mr Morrison said state and territory leaders had also agreed to map out a pathway to switch from virus suppression to focus on reducing the risk of serious illness and hospitalisation, depending on high vaccination rates that are yet to be determined.

In the meantime, Mr Morrison’s arrival cuts mean that even as other developed economies such as the US and the UK open up, Australia is further isolating after imposing strict border restrictions when the pandemic began 15 months ago.

A tardy vaccination rate – the second-slowest among the 38 OECD nations – has made it particularly vulnerable to the delta variant, which is increasingly leaking out of the ad-hoc quarantine system for international arrivals.

The leaders of Victoria and Queensland states have been pushing for urgent cuts to the intake of arrivals, saying it’s allowing for too many non-Australian residents to enter the nation, sometimes with infections.

That’s contributed to the lockdowns imposed in the past week in cities continent-wide, including Sydney, Brisbane and Perth; the current outbreaks are also linked to mining workers and airline crew who have travelled around the nation.

The snap lockdowns show the limits of Australia’s so-called "Covid-zero" strategy, which has relied on closed international borders and rigorous testing to eliminate community transmission of the virus.

In contrast to the UK and US which have had relatively strong vaccination rates, a slow rollout in Australia means the economy, and particularly domestic tourism, remains vulnerable.

Following similar moves by Singapore, Mr Morrison said Australia would start to treat Covid differently as vaccination rates increase.

The nation would incrementally implement a four-stage plan:

- Vaccinate and suppress the virus;

- Minimise serious illness, hospitalisation and death;

- Treat Covid like other infectious diseases such as the flu; and

- Return to normal life, including lifting travel caps for vaccinated people and allowing a more porous international border.

"When it is like the flu, we should treat it like the flu, and that means no lockdowns," Mr Morrison said.

Still, he gave no timelines or vaccination thresholds for the stages to be reached.

While 83.9 per cent of international arrivals in June were returning Australians, there are still 34,000 people trying to get home, Mr Morrison said.

His government would increase chartered flights in a bid to get more back in the country, he said.