Photographer: Lisa Maree Williams / Bloomberg
Photographer: Lisa Maree Williams / Bloomberg
All international travelers must return a negative Covid-19 test before embarking on a flight to Australia under strict border controls in order to prevent the spread of the British coronavirus strain.
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 an emergency Cabinet meeting National. The government will also reduce the number of people who can arrive each week – extending the task of relocating tens of thousands of Australians waiting to return home.
“This virus continues to write its own rules, and that means that we must continue to be adaptable in the way that we continue to fight it,” he said.
Australia already has some of the tightest controls in the world, closing the border to non-residents since March and requiring foreign travelers who have returned abroad to isolate themselves for 14 days in a quarantined hotel. The system was central to Australia’s success in containing the virus – but it also proved to be a crevice in its armor, with multiple occurrences of the virus escaping to the community through hotel quarantine cleaners, security guards or infected employees. in charge airport passenger transport.
The authorities fear that these violations may increase with the United Kingdom’s more communicable Covid-19 variant. Queensland on Friday imposed a three-day blockade on its capital, Brisbane, to prevent an outbreak after a cleaner at a quarantined hotel in the city became infected with the UK strain.
All quarantine workers in Australia will be tested daily, Morrison said.
Residents across Greater Brisbane will have to stay at home, except for essential jobs, services and exercises until Monday night, and wear masks if they leave, Queensland State Prime Minister Annastacia Pałaszczuk told reporters Friday -market.
“What we are seeing in the UK and elsewhere in the world are high rates of infection for this specific strain,” she said. “We must act immediately, we must act strongly.”
Why the UK’s Mutant Coronavirus is worrying about it: QuickTake
The preliminary analysis suggests that the variant is up until 70% more transmissible than other circulating strains and contributing to a spike in cases in the UK. Cases have been identified in more than 30 countries, including the USA, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Singapore and South Korea.