Australia is in “no rush” to open its international borders and risk the country’s success with the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Sunday.
According to Johns Hopkins University, as one of the countries to have performed better in the pandemic, with fewer than 30,000 reported cases and 910 deaths, Australia’s borders are still closed.
Swift border closures and limitations following sporadic regional rises in cases have so far made numbers down.
“Australia is in no rush to open those borders, I assure you,” Morrison said at a televised briefing.
“I will not be putting at risk the way we are living in this nation which is so different to the rest of the world today.”
However, there is hope that visitors may be allowed to trickle in by the end of 2021. On Friday, Morrison suggested that the priority would be to enable vaccinated Australians to fly in and out of the
country.
But he said that even a limited border opening was still some time away and would not be considered until the helpless have been vaccinated. Easing the limitations could see 1,000 cases a week, he added.
Australia’s borders are closed, with citizens and returning permanent residents, their immediate family, and tourists with exemptions the only people allowed to enter the country.
From April 19, a total travel bubble with New Zealand will commence, with the whole country identified as a green zone. It is not indefinite, however — regional brawls could see the drop curtailed.
