Australia
Australia welcomes back tourists with toy koalas, Tim Tams
International tourists and business travelers began arriving in Australia with few restrictions on Monday for the first time in almost two years after the government lifted some of the most draconian pandemic measures of any democracy in the world.
Vaccinated travelers were greeted at Sydney’s airport by jubilant well-wishers waving toy koalas and favorite Australian foods including Tim Tams chocolate cookies and jars of Vegemite spread.
Federal Tourism Minister Dan Tehan was on hand to welcome the first arrivals on a Qantas flight from Los Angeles which landed at 6.20 a.m. local time.
READ: Australia to open borders to vaccinated travelers on Feb. 21
“I think there’ll be a very strong rebound in our tourism market. Our wonderful experiences haven’t gone away,” Tehan told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television.
Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said all travelers’ vaccination status would be checked before they arrived to avoid a repeat of Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic’s visa debacle.
Djokovic was issued with a visa through an automated process before he left Spain to compete in the Australian Open in January but was deported after he arrived in Melbourne because he was not vaccinated against COVID-19.
Tourism Australia managing director Phillipa Harrison said she expected tourist numbers would take two years to rebound to pre-pandemic levels.
“This is a really great start,” Harrison said. “This is what the industry had been asking us for, you know, just give us our international guests back and we will take it from there”
Qantas on Monday was bringing in passengers from eight overseas destinations including Vancouver, Singapore, London, and Delhi.
The Sydney-based airline’s chief executive Alan Joyce said bookings had been strong since the federal government two weeks ago that the country was relaxing restrictions.
“It has been tough two years for everybody in the tourism industry, but today is really one of the big steps on the way back to a full recovery so we are very excited about today,” Joyce told Nine Network television.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said 1.2 million people had visas to enter Australia with 56 international flights due touch down in the first 24 hours of the border reopening.
Australia imposed some of the world’s toughest travel restrictions on its citizens and permanent residents in March 2020 to prevent them from bringing COVID-19 home.
Travelers had to apply for an exemption from the travel ban, but tourism wasn’t an accepted reason. International students and skilled migrants were prioritized when the border restrictions were relaxed in November in response to an increasing vaccination rate among the Australian population. Tourists from New Zealand, Japan and South Korea were also allowed in early.
Australian states and territories also have their own COVID-19 rules; the strictest are enforced by Western Australia state, which covers a third of the island continent.
Australia to open borders to vaccinated travelers on Feb. 21
Australia will open its borders to all vaccinated tourists and business travelers from Feb. 21 in a further relaxation of pandemic restrictions announced Monday.
Australia imposed some of the world’s toughest travel restrictions on its citizens and permanent residents in March 2020 to prevent them from bringing COVID-19 home.
When the border restrictions were relaxed in November in response to an increasing vaccination rate among the Australian population, international students and skilled migrants were prioritized over tourists in being welcomed back to Australia.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said his senior ministers agreed on Monday that the border would reopen to all vaccinated visas holders from Feb. 21.
Morrison said visitors must have proof of vaccination. He referred to Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic being deported by the Australian government last month because he was not vaccinated against coronavirus.
“Events earlier in the year should have sent a very clear message, I think, to everyone around the world that that is the requirement to enter into Australia,” Morrison said.
Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said visitors who could provide proof of a medical reason why they could not be vaccinated could apply for a travel exemption.
Read: UN experts: North Korea stealing millions in cyber attacks
Tourist operators have been lobbying the government to bring tourists back sooner. The southern hemisphere summer is in its final month.
The Australian Tourism Export Council, the peak industry body representing the nation’s tourism export sector, said tourism operations were looking forward to rebuilding their markets.
“Australian tourism businesses will rejoice in the news that our borders will reopen to all international travelers,” the council’s managing director Peter Shelley said in a statement.
“It’s been a long, hard and desperate road for every tourism business across the country and we have lost many along the way, but this news will give those who have survived a clear target to work towards and a start point for the rebuilding of the industry,” Shelley added.
New Zealand to end quarantine stays and reopen its borders
New Zealand’s government on Thursday said it will end its quarantine requirements for incoming travelers and reopen its borders, a change welcomed by thousands of citizens abroad who have endured long waits to return home.
Since the start of the pandemic, New Zealand has enacted some of the world’s strictest border controls. Most incoming travelers need to spend 10 days in a quarantine hotel room run by the military, a requirement that has created a bottleneck at the border.
The measures were initially credited with saving thousands of lives and allowed New Zealand to eliminate or control several outbreaks of the coronavirus.
Read: New Zealand to start reopening borders to world from January
But, increasingly, the border controls have been viewed as out-of-step in a world where the virus is becoming endemic, and in a country where the omicron variant is already spreading. The bottleneck forced many New Zealanders abroad to enter a lottery-style system to try and secure a spot in quarantine and passage home.
The shortcomings of the system were highlighted over the past week by pregnant New Zealand journalist Charlotte Bellis, who was stranded in Afghanistan after New Zealand officials initially rejected her application to return home to give birth. After international publicity, officials backed down and offered her a spot in quarantine, which she has accepted.
The border changes mean that vaccinated New Zealanders returning from Australia will no longer need to go into quarantine from the end of this month, and vaccinated New Zealanders returning from the rest of the world can skip quarantine by mid-March. They will still be required to isolate at home.
However, most tourists will need to wait until October before they can enter the country without a quarantine stay. And anybody who isn’t vaccinated will still be required to go through quarantine.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she knows many people associate the border controls with heartache but they have undeniably saved lives.
“There is no question that for New Zealand, it has been one of the hardest parts of the pandemic,” she said. “But the reason that it is right up there as one of the toughest things we have experienced is, in part, because large-scale loss of life is not.”
She said the controls “meant not everyone could come home when they wanted to. But it also meant that COVID could not come in when it wanted to, either.”
Read:US to reopen land borders in November for fully vaccinated
Ardern said the restrictions had allowed New Zealand to build its defenses against the virus by achieving high levels of vaccination while also keeping the economy running strongly.
About 77% of New Zealanders are fully vaccinated, according to Our World in Data. That rises to 93% among those aged 12 and over, according to health officials.
New Zealand has reported just 53 virus deaths among its population of 5 million.
New Zealand’s economy did return to growth quickly after a pandemic dip, and unemployment decreased to 3.2% in the latest quarter, the lowest level since record-keeping began in 1986. But the government has also increased borrowing sharply and home prices have skyrocketed.
Opposition leader Christopher Luxon said the reopening of the border was welcome news, and his National Party had long called for the government to “end the lottery of human misery.”
Ardern said it was a first step toward normality.
“There was life before, and now life with COVID, but that also means there will be life after COVID too, a life where we have adapted, where we have some normality back, and where the weather can once again take its rightful place as our primary topic of conversation,” Ardern said. “We are well on our way to reaching that destination. We’re just not quite there yet.”
23 Australians on ship delivering aid to Tonga have virus
Nearly two dozen sailors on an Australian military ship going to deliver aid to Tonga have tested positive for the coronavirus, officials said Tuesday, raising fears they could bring COVID-19 to a Pacific nation that has so far managed to avoid any outbreaks.
Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton said his government was working with Tongan authorities to keep the ship at sea and make sure there is no threat to Tonga’s 105,000 residents.
Tongan authorities have been wary that accepting international aid could usher in a bigger disaster than the huge eruption of an undersea volcano 10 days ago. The eruption triggered a tsunami that destroyed dozens of homes, and volcanic ash has tainted drinking water.
Since the pandemic began, Tonga has reported just a single case of COVID-19 and has avoided any outbreaks. It’s one of the few countries in the world currently completely virus free. About 61% of Tongans are fully vaccinated, according to Our World in Data.
Australian officials said 23 crew members were infected on the HMAS Adelaide, which left Brisbane on Friday.
“They need the aid desperately, but they don’t want the risk of COVID,” Dutton told Sky News. “We will work through all of that as quickly as we can.”
It’s the second aid shipment from Australia in which at least one crew member tested positive. A C-17 Globemaster military transport plane was earlier turned around midflight after somebody was diagnosed.
Meanwhile, a cable company official said Tonga’s main island could have its internet service restored within two weeks, although it may take much longer to repair the connection to the smaller islands.
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The single undersea fiber-optic cable which connects the Pacific nation to the outside world was severed after the eruption and tsunami.
That left most people unable to connect with loved ones abroad. For days, people couldn’t get through on their phones, by email, or through social media.
Since then, Tonga’s Digicel has been able to restore international call services to some areas by using satellite connections. Some people have been able to send emails or get limited internet connectivity.
Samieula Fonua, who chairs the board at Tonga Cable Ltd., the state-owned company which owns the fiber-optic cable, said a repair ship had left from Papua New Guinea and was due to stop over in Samoa by Monday to pick up supplies. It should then arrive in Tonga by Feb. 1.
Fonua said the CS Reliance had a crew of about 60 aboard, including engineers, divers and medical staff. He said its equipment included a robot which could assess the cable on the seabed.
TECHNOLOGYDC, 3 states sue Google saying it invades users' privacyBelarus hacktivists target railway in anti-Russia effortIn global 5G race, European Union is told to step up pace23 Australians on ship delivering aid to Tonga have virusFonua said preliminary estimates indicated the break in the cable was located about 37 kilometers (23 miles) offshore from the main island of Tongatapu. He said that all going well, the crew should be able to repair the cable by Feb. 8, restoring the internet to about 80% of Tonga’s customers.
The cable runs from Tonga to Fiji, a distance of about 800 kilometers (500 miles), and was first commissioned in 2013 at a cost of about $16 million. It was financed through grants from the World Bank Group and Asian Development Bank, and increased Tonga’s internet capacity fivefold.
But like many small Pacific countries, Tonga relies heavily on a single cable to stay connected and has little in the way of a back-up plan. Three years ago, a cable break believed to have been caused by a ship dragging its anchor also led to weeks of disruptions.
Read: Global Covid cases top 354 million
A second, domestic fiber-optic cable that connects Tonga’s smaller islands to the main island could prove much more difficult to repair. Fonua said that cable runs near the undersea volcano which erupted and may have been severely damaged. It might need extensive repairs or even a replacement, he said.
Fonua said the focus was on fixing the main international cable, and they could deal with the domestic connections “at a later time.”
He said Tongans had been somewhat understanding of the communication disruptions caused by the disaster, which killed three people, destroyed dozens of homes and tainted water supplies with volcanic ash.
“People are calm. Coming out of a total blackout, just being able to call outside and send an email has settled them a bit,” Fonua said. “By the time they start getting more frustrated, I’m hoping we’ll have the cable connected by then.”
Australian life expectancy rises despite COVID-19: study
Life expectancy for Australians has increased to a record high during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a study published on Monday, researchers from Australian National University (ANU) found that life expectancy for both Australian males and females increased by 0.7 years between 2019 and the first year of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
The increase far outstripped the average growth of between 0.09 and 0.14 years recorded in Australia between 2015 and 2019, according to the Canberra Times.
By comparison, life expectancy in the United States fell by 1.7 years for women and 2.2 years for men in 2020.
Read: US life expectancy in 2020 saw biggest drop since WWII
Vladimir Canudas-Romo, co-author of the study from ANU's School of Demography, said the significant difference could be attributed to Australia's quick response to the pandemic.
"Australia was in a unique position to be able to close borders to the rest of the world. Now with the strong compliance on vaccinations, we are likely to be one of the safest places in the world," he was quoted by the Canberra Times.
The ANU researchers found that COVID-19 containment measures introduced in 2020 caused a "sharp decline in the spread of other infectious diseases," with deaths from pneumonia and influenza falling 20 percent.
A sharp decline in social mobility due to lockdowns and travel restrictions also caused a significant decline in the number of road deaths.
Read: Chinese elderly getting 'younger' as life expectancy increases
"Coronavirus was among the few causes of death that really increased from 2019 to 2020 ... in the case of the United States there was an extreme case of COVID strongly declining life expectancy," Canudas-Romo said.
"In Australia even when mortality increased due to COVID, we still had so much decline in infectious diseases, accidents, heart attacks and strokes, that our life expectancy increased by three-quarters of a year," he said.
Former PM tests positive as omicron cases rise in Australia
Australia’s former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday, as case numbers hit new highs across the country and health officials warned that the real number of cases is likely much higher than testing shows.
Turnbull, who was prime minister from 2015 to 2018, confirmed on Twitter he was isolating at home after a positive test.
“Like hundreds of thousands of other Australians I have tested positive for COVID. Symptoms moderate so far. Isolating as required,” Turnbull wrote. “This pandemic and especially this latest wave has put our health professionals under enormous pressure.”
“Please be polite and considerate when dealing with the front-line health workers,” he added. “They have had two years of relentless pressure and it’s now at its most intense. So give them the love and respect they deserve, please.”
The revelation of Turnbull’s case followed the announcement that federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg also has tested positive.
New South Wales saw a record 45,098 new cases on Saturday — up from 38,625 a day earlier — as the spread of the omicron variant forced the reintroduction of some restrictions in Australia’s most populous state. Dancing and singing in pubs and nightclubs was prohibited from midnight Friday.
Also read: Coronavirus cases surge across Australia as omicron spreads
Susan Pearce, deputy secretary of New South Wales Health, said the state had not yet reached the peak of its omicron surge.
“We expect that peak to occur in around the third to the last week of January,” she said. “We have got some challenging weeks ahead of us. But we have been planning for this pandemic and continuing to reinvent ourselves for two years now.”
Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said almost 50 percent of cases were in people aged 20 to 39.
“The transmission is happening in a variety of settings,” she said. “Obviously in those household and social gatherings that people are having and also in places like pubs, clubs, nightclubs (hence) the concern around the behavior of dancing and singing.”
Read: Global covid cases near 280mn as Omicron wave pounds hospitals
Victoria state reported 51,356 cases on Saturday, more than double the number of the day before. The large increase was attributed to a backlog of positive cases resulting from the state’s new self-reporting system.
People who test at home using rapid antigen tests are required to report positive cases to health authorities by phone or through a new web-based system.
Saturday’s figure also included almost 25,000 cases identified through PCR tests.
State Health Minister Martin Foley said Saturday’s spike in numbers would stabilize over time to provide a more accurate picture of the omicron spread. He said the high number of self-reported cases “is in many respects exactly what we wanted to happen.”
Djokovic in limbo as he fights deportation from Australia
Locked in a dispute over his COVID-19 vaccination status, Novak Djokovic was confined to an immigration detention hotel in Australia on Thursday as the No. 1 men's tennis player in the world awaited a court ruling on whether he can compete in the Australian Open later this month.
Djokovic, a vocal skeptic of vaccines, had traveled to Australia after Victoria state authorities granted him a medical exemption to the country's strict vaccination requirements. But when he arrived late Wednesday, the Australian Border Force rejected his exemption as invalid and barred him from entering the country.
A court hearing on his bid to stave off deportation was set for Monday, a week before the season's first major tennis tournament is set to begin. The defending Australian Open champion is waiting it out in Melbourne at a secure hotel used by immigration officials to house asylum seekers and refugees.
Djokovic is hoping to overtake rivals Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer and win his 21st Grand Slam singles title, the most by any player in men's tennis.
Also read: Comeback! Djokovic tops Tsitsipas at French Open for Slam 19
Djokovic's securing of an exemption so that he could play triggered an uproar and allegations of special treatment in Australia, where people spent months in lockdown and endured harsh travel restrictions at the height of the pandemic.
After his long-haul flight, the tennis star spent the night at the airport trying to convince authorities he had the necessary documentation, to no avail.
“The rule is very clear,” Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said. “You need to have a medical exemption. He didn’t have a valid medical exemption. We make the call at the border, and that’s where it’s enforced.”
Health Minister Greg Hunt said the athlete's visa was canceled after border officials reviewed Djokovic’s medical exemption and looked at "the integrity and the evidence behind it.”
The grounds on which he was granted an exemption were not immediately disclosed.
Also read: Djokovic recovers from 2-set French Open hole against teen
While Djokovic has steadfastly refused to say whether he has gotten any shots against the coronavirus, he has spoken out against vaccines, and it is widely presumed he would not have sought an exemption if he had been vaccinated.
A federal judge will take up the case next week. A lawyer for the government agreed the nine-time Australian Open champion should not be deported before then.
“I feel terrible since yesterday that they are keeping him as a prisoner. It’s not fair. It’s not human. I hope that he will win," Djokovic's mother, Dijana, said after speaking with him briefly by telephone from Belgrade.
She added: "Terrible, terrible accommodation. It’s just some small immigration hotel, if it’s a hotel at all."
Australia’s home affairs minister, Karen Andrews, said Friday that Djokovic could fly out of the country on the first available flight.
“Can I say, firstly, that Mr. Djokovic is not being held captive in Australia. He is free to leave at any time that he chooses to do so,” Andrews said. "And Border Force will actually facilitate that.”
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has also spoken to Djokovic and said his government asked that the athlete be allowed to move to a house he has rented and “not to be in that infamous hotel.”
He said Djokovic has been treated differently from other players.
“I’m afraid that this overkill will continue," Vucic said. "When you can’t beat someone, then you do such things.”
Border Force investigations were continuing into two other people who arrived in Australia for the tennis tournament, Andrews said.
Australia's prime minister said the onus is on the traveler to have the proper documentation on arrival, and he rejected any suggestion that Djokovic was being singled out.
“One of the things the Border Force does is act on intelligence to direct their attention to potential arrivals,” he said. “When you get people making public statements about what they say they have, and they’re going to do, they draw significant attention to themselves.”
Anyone who does that, he said, “whether they’re a celebrity, a politician, a tennis player . . . they can expect to be asked questions more than others before you come.”
The medical-exemption applications from players, their teams and tennis officials were vetted by two independent panels of experts. An approved exemption allowed entry to the tournament.
Acceptable reasons for an exemption include major health conditions and serious reactions to a previous dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. A COVID-19 infection within the previous six months has also been widely reported to be grounds for an exemption, but that's where interpretations appeared to differ between the federal level, which controls the border, and tennis and state health officials.
Former Australian Open tournament director and Davis Cup player Paul McNamee said the treatment of Djokovic was unfair.
“The guy played by the rules, he got his visa, he arrives, he’s a nine-time champion and whether people like it or not he’s entitled to fair play,” McNamee told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "There’s no doubt there’s some disconnect between the state and the federal government.
“I hate to think politics are involved but it feels that way.”
Djokovic tested positive for the coronavirus in June 2020 after he played in a series of exhibition matches that he organized without social distancing amid the pandemic.
Critics questioned what grounds Djokovic could have for the exemption, while supporters argued he has a right to privacy and freedom of choice.
Many Australians who have struggled to obtain COVID-19 tests or have been forced into isolation saw a double standard.
Tension has grown amid another surge of COVID-19 in the country. Victoria state recorded six deaths and nearly 22,000 new cases on Thursday, the biggest one-day jump in the caseload since the pandemic began.
Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley has defended the “completely legitimate application and process” and insisted there was no special treatment for Djokovic.
Twenty-six people connected with the tournament applied for a medical exemption and, Tiley said, only a “handful” were granted. None of those have been publicly identified.
Coronavirus cases surge across Australia as omicron spreads
Coronavirus cases surged across Australia on Wednesday as an outbreak of the omicron variant spread, with new infections in Sydney and surrounding parts of New South Wales state skyrocketing to more than 11,000, up from 6,000 a day earlier.
Victoria state also reported a record 3,700 cases, up by more than 1,000 from the previous record set a day earlier.
More than three-quarters of Australians are fully vaccinated, and just how deadly the latest outbreak will prove remains to be seen.
Australia has so far avoided the worst ravages of the pandemic, reporting a total of 2,200 virus deaths among its population of 26 million.
On Wednesday, New South Wales — Australia’s most populous state — reported three new virus deaths and 625 hospitalizations, including 61 patients in intensive care. Victoria reported four new deaths and 397 hospitalizations, including 62 in intensive care.
Testing centers have been unable to keep up with a surge in demand.
Thousands of people across New South Wales have waited for hours this week to be tested. Some were travelers who were required to have a negative PCR test before arriving in Queensland.
But under pressure to ease that requirement, Queensland’s premier said Wednesday it will accept rapid antigen tests instead of PCR tests for travelers from interstate hotspots from January 1.
The outbreak was also contributing to a shortage of blood donations and an urgent call for donors to step up.
Testing and quarantining requirements prompted by the outbreak, combined with the holiday season, were creating a “perfect storm” of cancellations, said Red Cross Lifeblood donor center network head Cath Stone.
“More than half of all appointments are not being attended, which means we need more donors to roll up their sleeves and take the place of those who can’t donate,” Stone said.
Record COVID case numbers reported in 2 Australia states
Australia’s Victoria and Queensland states reported record levels of new daily coronavirus infections on Tuesday as pressure on testing centers prompted calls for wider use of rapid antigen tests.
Queensland state reported 1,158 cases, the first time the state has seen more than 1,000 cases in a day, but hospitalizations remained low. The state has more than 4,000 active cases of which 257 are reported to be the omicron variant.
State Health Minister Yvette D’Ath announced Tuesday that travelers from out of state no longer will have to have a PCR test five days after arrival. D’Ath said of the tens of thousands who had crossed the state’s borders recently, only 0.6 percent had tested positive on day five.
“Anyone who is waiting in lines now for the day five test . . . will not be required to get day five tests from now,” she said. “We thank everyone for doing the right thing. We have made sure we’ve done this in a safe and responsible way but from now, that no longer applies.”
Read: Australia’s most populous state reports 1st omicron death
Victoria state reported 2,738 new cases Tuesday, beating the previous state record of 2,297 cases in mid-October.
Australia’s most-populous state, New South Wales, saw a slight fall in case numbers but that corresponded with fewer tests around Christmas Day. The state reported 6,062 new infections Tuesday, down from 6,324 a day earlier.
New South Wales Heath Minister Brad Hazzard said the requirement for travelers to Queensland to have a negative PCR test 72 hours before departure was putting unnecessary strain on testing facilities. He said in enforcing the requirement, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk was “perverting the purposes of pathology testing.”
“If Queensland thinks people are arriving free of COVID, that’s not necessarily true,” Hazzard said. “These tests have been done three or four days before arriving. It’s counterproductive.
“This rule is contributing to the breakdown of the biggest pathology system in the country. We are not getting the turnaround times we need.”
Read: Australia PM meets with state leaders as virus cases surge
Long lines were reported at testing centers around Sydney on Tuesday.
Australian federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has called for rapid antigen tests to replace PCR tests for most interstate travelers, to relieve pressure on testing centers.
“Using that rapid antigen test ahead of interstate travel is a better approach than the more expensive and time consuming PCR test,” Frydenberg told the ABC. “I think that’s a sensible balance recognizing that people want some level of surety about their health status before they travel.
“But at the same time they want to avoid the long queues and long waiting times coming with the PCR tests.”
Australia’s most populous state reports 1st omicron death
Australia’s New South Wales state reported more than 6,000 new COVID-19 cases on Monday and confirmed its first death from the omicron variant.
The fatal case was identified as a man in his 80s who was infected at an aged care facility in western Sydney. He was fully vaccinated but had underlying health conditions.
New South Wales, the country’s most populous state, reported 6,324 new infections Monday, a fall of 70 from the record number a day before. There were 524 people in hospitals, including 55 in intensive care.
Read: Global covid cases near 280mn as Omicron wave pounds hospitals
New measures came into force in New South Wales on Monday, including limits of one person per 2 square meters (22 square feet) in bars and restaurants and required “check-ins” with QR codes in hospitality venues.
Health Minister Brad Hazzard said the state government is considering lifting the requirement for health workers to isolate after being exposed to COVID-19 because of staff shortages.
Victoria state reported 1,999 new cases on Monday with three deaths.
State COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar said Victoria has moved to random genome testing for the omicron variant to better understand its spread.