Australia fully reopens borders after two years of pandemic related closures
Feb 21, 2022: According to a report by Reuters, Australia fully reopened its international borders on Monday after passengers vaccinated against the corona virus were allowed to enter after nearly two years of pandemic closure.
The opening of borders marks a return of tourists and hundreds of people were reunited with family and friends.
More than 50 international flights a day will arrive in the country, with 27 touching its largest city, Sydney, as the tourism and hospitality sectors seek to rebuild after being hit by COVID-19 restrictions.
While talking to press in the island of Tasmania, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, “It is a very exciting day, one that I have been looking forward to for a long time, from the day that I first shut that border right at the start of the pandemic,”
Tourism being one of Australia’s biggest industries, worth more than A$60 billion ($43 billion) and employing about 5% of the country’s workforce was crippled after the country shut its borders in March 2020.
Once the champion of the COVID suppression strategy, Australia has since foregone its fortress like approach and constant lockdown at the end of last year when the omicron variant began to spread and has since then decided to live with the virus after reaching a high level of vaccination.
As borders reopen completely, the outbreak of the omicron variant in Australia seems to have reached its peak and hospital admissions have been steadily declining over the past three weeks. Most of the approximately 2.7 million confirmed cases of the pandemic have been detected in Australia since the emergence of Omicron in late November last year.
The country’s total death toll stands at 4,929.
Skilled migrants, international students and backpackers have been allowed to travel to Australia in a stunning reopening exercise since November.
Passengers flying to Sydney were greeted from the air with “Welcome Back World!” painted on a sign near the runways while people in kangaroo costumes welcomed travellers and a DJ played music from a van festooned with a banner saying “You were worth the wait”.
Airlines were optimistic about the move with Qantas looking to fly more than 14,000 passengers into Australia this week and Virgin Australia saying it was seeing positive trends in domestic bookings and continued to assess demand for international flights.
On the downside however, all trains in Sydney, meanwhile, were cancelled on Monday after pay disputes between the union and the state government.
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