On December 15th local time, Australia will reopen its borders to fully vaccinated visa holders, including international students and skilled immigrants. However, the recent situation of the country’s coronavirus epidemic is not optimistic.
According to Singapore’s Straits Times on December 15, Australian Prime Minister Morrison said that 90% of the country’s people aged 16 and above have completed two doses of vaccination, so he believes that “there is no need to be afraid of the novel coronavirus”. At the same time, he said that Australia would reopen its border on the 15th because the coronavirus variant Omikron was “not as serious as originally thought”. On the 13th local time, Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt said that the country would reopen its borders to eligible visa holders, including international students and skilled immigrants, on the 15th as planned. “We will reopen at the recommendation of the Prime Minister, Cabinet and Chief Medical Officer. Border plan.”
Earlier, the Australian federal government announced on November 29 that due to the emergence of Omikron, the country postponed the opening of the border from December 1 to December 15. At that time, Morrison said, “We postponed the opening date to December 15 because we hope to better understand Omikron and the efficacy of the vaccine on the variant strain.”
However, the current epidemic situation in Australia is not optimistic. Take Victoria and New South Wales as examples. The state’s Department of Health said on the 14th that there were 1189 new confirmed coronavirus cases in a single day, including 3 cases of infection with Omikron, in addition to 6 new deaths. On the 13th local time, there were 9 cases of infection with Omikron in a bar in Newcastle, New South Wales. So far, there have been 84 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the state, including 64 cases of infection in Omikron.
