By Lidia Kelly
MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Australia is in no hurry to reopen its international borders and risk the country’s near-coronavirus-free lifestyle, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Sunday.
Australia closed its borders to all non-citizens and non-residents in March 2020 and has only allowed limited international arrivals in recent months, mainly its citizens returning from abroad.
The closure of the border, coupled with the closure of the blocks, rapid contact detection and compliance with community health measures have made Australia one of the world’s most successful countries in curbing the pandemic and coronavirus cases to less than 29. 500 infections and 910 deaths.
“Australia is not in a hurry to open its borders, I can assure you,” Morrison said in a televised briefing.
“I will not endanger the way we live in this country that is so different from the rest of the world today.”
Except for a few short snap lock-ups, Australians have been able to eat out for months, get along almost freely and in most places stop wearing face masks.
They traded their international visits for local travel, with government figures showing large increases in domestic travel in the first months of 2021.
Australians and neighboring New Zealanders will be able to travel between the two countries from Monday without applying for exemption or spending time in compulsory quarantine.
New Zealand has only 2,239 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 26 deaths.
Morrison noted on Sunday that vaccinated Australians could travel overseas ‘for essential purposes’ and return via home quarantine in the second half of the year, but the possibility is only in ‘planning stages’.
Australia recently dropped a target of vaccinating almost all of its 26 million inhabitants by the end of 2021 following advice that people under the age of 50 take Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine rather than take AstraZeneca.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly; Edited by Lincoln Feast.)