PM SLASHES INBOUND CAPS, SAYS VACCINATED AUSSIES MAY BE TRAVELLING OVERSEAS BY END OF 2021
ScoMo's shiny new roadmap to get Australia "back to normal" includes shortened quarantine periods and unrestricted international travel for vaccinated Aussies.
The weekly intake figure of inbound arrivals will temporarily go from 6,370 to 3,185 in the coming weeks as part of a new four-phase ‘pathway out ’.
He also said all restrictions on outbound travel would be lifted for vaccinated people once a certain portion of the population has received the required doses of the jab, which could eventuate by the end of this year.
“Once we get to a position of the post-vaccination phase, I think we’ll have made a quantum leap in where we are now. It’s not the number of cases that matters then,” Morrison said.
The first phase, which we are in now, is focused on suppressing the virus to give Australia the opportunity to get vaccinated.
Morrison said the national cabinet agreed that during this phase lockdowns will now only be used as a last resort.
He also said that vaccinated Aussies returning from overseas could be quarantining at home rather than shelling out for hotel quarantine during this phase, with quarantine periods expected to halve.
Once the country reaches a yet-to-be-determined threshold of vaccination, the “post-vaccination” phase will be triggered, vaccinated residents will benefit from relaxed restrictions around travel and the inbound passenger caps will be restored, with a larger cap introduced for vaccinated travellers.
Phase three will be entered into once fatality and hospitalisation rates are more like that of “the flu”, and will see all outbound travel restrictions lifted for vaccinated people and an extended trans-Tasman travel bubble to include countries like Singapore and the Pacific.
Morrison said that by phase four, Australia will be “completely back to normal”.
