Until recently, it had some of the strictest border policies in the world. It has also banned entry of non-citizens who have been to South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, Malawi and Mozambique in the last 14 days.Īustralian citizens and permanent residents, meanwhile, will need to go into immediate quarantine for two weeks. The heavily mutated variant was detected in South Africa earlier this month, prompting several countries to issue a travel ban on Southern African countries.Īustralia, which has so far found five omicron infections, has now delayed the restrictions it was set to ease.

It said that the temporary pause will ensure Australia can better understand the omicron variant, including the 'efficacy of vaccines, the range of illness and the level of transmission.' The government, however, delayed its plan of reopening the country's borders for international students and skilled workers for 15 days starting Dec. None of us want to go back to those, those long quarantines and all of those sorts of issues,' Scott Morrison told a news conference in the capital Canberra. Some information for this report came from Reuters.The Australian prime minister on Tuesday said his government will not return to COVID-19 lockdowns after the confirmation of the omicron variant. The prime minister has abandoned the long-held strategy of eliminating coronavirus, and has instead embraced a policy of living with the virus and managing its spread. Prime Minister Ardern told reporters Monday in the capital Wellington that the curbs needed to stay in place to avoid a spike in new cases and hospitalizations as the numbers of fully vaccinated people continues to rise. Like Australia, New Zealand was among a small number of countries to drive coronavirus cases down to near zero last year because of border closures and snap lockdowns.But the small Pacific nation of five million people has been battling its own outbreak of the highly contagious delta variant since August that has frustrated efforts to stamp out transmission. The situation is far different in New Zealand’s biggest city of Auckland, as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Monday that it will remain under strict lockdowns for another two weeks despite a high vaccination rate. Meanwhile, residents in Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, are expected to fully emerge from its latest lockdown period on Friday of this week as Victoria state nears its goal of 70 percent of its citizens 16 years old and older to be fully vaccinated.Īustralia has been largely successful in containing the spread of COVID-19 through aggressive lockdown efforts at the start of the pandemic, but a rapid outbreak of new infections in Sydney triggered by the delta outbreak back in June spread across Australia and forced authorities in several cities to impose strict lockdown orders. New South Wales last week ended a mandatory quarantine for vaccinated international passengers who test negative for COVID-19 before flying to Sydney. Mandatory indoor mask wearing has been dropped, while restaurants, bars and gyms can now welcome fully vaccinated patrons. Residents of New South Wales state, of which Sydney is the capital, are slowly emerging from strict lockdown orders now that the rate of fully vaccinated people ages 16 and over has reached 80 percent, according to officials. Children in Australia’s largest city returned to in-person learning Monday as Sydney reached an important milestone in its fight against COVID-19.

Australian lockdown