Australians WILL be able to travel overseas and quarantine at home on return once 80% jab rate is hit, Scott Morrison says
- Australians will be allowed on holiday once 80 per cent are fully vaccinated
- Travel bubbles will be set up with safe countries to allow unrestricted travel
- Those returning from restricted countries may have 7-day home quarantine
- Prime Minister also urged cautious states to allow domestic home quarantine
Australians will be allowed to go overseas with home quarantine on return once 80 per cent of over 16s are fully vaccinated, Scott Morrison said on Tuesday.
The Prime Minister also said that ultra-cautious states like Western Australia and Queensland should start allowing home quarantine for domestic travel once 70 per cent are jabbed.
Aussies have been banned from leaving the country for holidays since March 2020 and anyone returning must pay up to $2,800 for two weeks of hotel quarantine.
Australians will be allowed to go overseas with home quarantine on return once 80 per cent of over 16s are fully vaccinated. Pictured: A passenger arriving at Sydney Airport
But Mr Morrison’s national re-opening plan allows the international border to finally open for the double vaccinated once 80 per cent are fully jabbed, which is expected in mid November.
Arrivals could be allowed to quarantine at home for seven days or enter without any quarantine at all if coming from a highly vaccinated travel bubble country like the US, UK and Singapore.
Mr Morrison was asked about quarantine in a 4BC radio interview on Tuesday after Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk – who has banned NSW residents from her state – granted NRL stars and WAGs special privilege to enter.
‘I share people’s frustration about that but what’s the answer? We need to move to home quarantine,’ he said.
‘Home quarantine means places for all Australians, for all Queenslanders, on that basis.
‘Right now in South Australia they’re running the trial for home quarantine and that’s exactly what we can begin to introduce once we hit 70 per cent.
‘That means Queenslanders returning home from elsewhere in the country, if [any form of quarantine] is necessary. At 70 per cent and 80 per cent, it would be hard to understand why that would be needed.’
Mr Morrison’s national re-opening plan allows the international border to finally open for the double vaccinated once 80 per cent are fully jabbed
Mr Morrison said home quarantine for overseas travel would kick in once the 80 per cent jab rate is hit.
‘But once you get especially to 80 per cent [you] should be able to return home and quarantine at home,’ he said.
‘The answer for quarantine going forward is actually home quarantine for Australians and to the extent that we continue to have quarantine going forward then what we need is for that to be for international travellers.
‘For workers that are necessary to come in, for backpackers to come back who are vaccinated.
‘If there is a need for quarantine once you’ve passed 80 per cent then that’s what that should be for. I want to see home quarantine become the norm.’
Mr Morrison said lockdowns are doing ‘tremendous harm’ and wants the country to open at 80 per cent
In early July Mr Morrison said that home quarantine could be safer than hotel quarantine because it requires no staff.
‘A vaccinated person doing quarantine for seven days is stronger than an unvaccinated person doing quarantine for 14 days,’ he said.
Australia could adopt a traffic light system similar to the UK’s which rates countries as red, amber or green depending on their Covid-19 infection levels and vaccination rates.
In the UK, travellers from ‘red’ countries must show a negative test and do 10 days of hotel quarantine, while those from ‘amber’ countries must test negative and home quarantine for 10 days unless fully vaccinated.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she would likely allow home quarantine in NSW for Aussies returning from overseas once the 70 per cent jab rate is hit.
‘Once we hit 70 per cent double dose we’ll be thinking about, if not before hand, how we treat people in quarantine when they’re coming home,’ she said.
‘If you have fully vaccinated Aussies coming home, do you expect them to be in a hotel for two weeks in quarantine?
‘Can we look after them at home as we do all the Covid cases now?’