Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison raised the possibility of limited overseas travel in the lead-up to Monday’s national cabinet meeting, and is canvassing options for allowing Australians to travel overseas for funerals or business before opening the door to mass travel.
Mr Morrison tod Perth’s 6PR radio that “if we were to lift the borders and people were to come then you would see those cases increase and Australians would have to become used to dealing with a thousand cases a week or more.”
He said that the “first goal” would be to allow vaccinated Australians to travel overseas for important purposes, such as funerals or business, but these would still be required to undergo quarantine at home.
“That would enable Australians to travel first for business and those sorts of things but ultimately if that worked well over a period of time and the data was showing that home-based quarantine was not creating any additional, scaled risks, that could lead to something more significant,” he said.
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“That is how we move to the next step.”
For this to take place, Mr Morrison would need the backing of state premiers, and Mr Morrison also said he wanted to “unite the nation” and move for national cabinet to take place twice a week.
On Monday, national cabinet will look at urgent changes needed to recalibrate the vaccine rollout, including mobilising hubs to inoculate millions wh will still be waiting for their first doses when 20 million Pfizer vaccines arrive in the fourth quarter of 2021.
