Australia may reopen to international tourists during the Easter holiday in April. The announcement was made by the country’s Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, while speaking to a local radio station. Though he did not provide a specific date, he stated that he hopes it will occur sometime during Easter.
“Well I can’t give you a specific date yet…and that’s because we’re just watching how omicron is sort of washing over the eastern states. I’d like to see us get there soon — certainly before Easter, well before Easter.”
Scott Morrison, The Australian PM
Since the start of the pandemic, Australia has been one of the countries that has maintained stricter border controls. The country halted all modes of transportation and only allowed certain groups of people to enter. Only Australian citizens, permanent residents, and their immediate family members are permitted to visit the country, according to the Department of Home Affairs.
Australia only recently reopened its borders to fully vaccinated tourists from a number of countries, including Singapore, Japan, and South Korea, with no quarantine measures in place.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States, on the other hand, has placed Australia on their “Level 4” list of destinations, indicating a “very high” level of COVID-19 transmission in the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised Americans to avoid traveling to Australia for the time being. The CDC classifies a country as “Level 4” if there have been 500 or more Coronavirus cases per 100,000 people in the previous 28 days.