Photographer: Lisa Maree Williams / Bloomberg
Photographer: Lisa Maree Williams / Bloomberg
All international travelers must return a negative Covid-19 test before they can board a flight to Australia under strict border controls designed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus strain in the UK.
Passengers must wear masks on all international flights to Australia and on domestic routes, and the international air crew will be tested on arrival in the country, Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters on Friday after a meeting of emergency of the national cabinet. The government will also reduce the number of people allowed to arrive each week, prolonging the task of relocating tens of thousands of Australians hoping to return home.
“This virus continues to write its own rules, and that means we need to continue to be adaptable in the way we continue to fight it,” he said.
Australia already has some of the strictest controls in the world, as it has opened the border to non-residents since March and requires returned foreign travelers to be isolated for 14 days in a quarantine hotel. The system has been instrumental in Australia’s success in curbing the virus, but it has also proven to be a small piece of armor, as several cases of the virus escape into the community through hotel cleaners. of infected quarantine, security guards or workers. in charge with passenger transport from airports.
Authorities fear these offenses could increase with the more transmissible variant of the UK Covid-19. On Friday, the state of Queensland imposed a three-day closure on its capital, Brisbane, to prevent an outbreak after a cleaner at a city quarantine hotel was infected by the UK strain.
Now all quarantine workers in Australia will be subjected to daily testing, Morrison said.
Residents of Greater Brisbane will have to stay home, except for essential jobs, services and exercise, until Monday evening, and wear masks if they go outside, Annastacia Pałaszczuk, Queensland’s prime minister, told reporters on Friday.
“What we are seeing in the UK and elsewhere in the world are high rates of infection by this particular strain,” he said. “We have to act immediately, we have to act hard.”
Why the UK’s mutated coronavirus is worrying: QuickTake
Preliminary analysis suggests that the variant is Until 70% more transmissible than other circulating strains and contributing to a rise in cases in the UK. Cases have been identified in more than 30 countries, including the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Singapore and South Korea.