Gulf Today

Australian PM defends India travel ban

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SYDNEY: Australia on Monday defended its decision to penalise its own citizens entering the country within two weeks of being in COVIDravag­ed India, saying it had “strong, clear and absolute” belief the move was legal.

Health Minister Greg Hunt pointed to the alarming surge of coronaviru­s cases in India and the pressure on Australia’s health system as reasons to pause travel until May 15.

Australia’s quarantine hotels have seen a 1,500% spike in COVID-19 cases from India since March, raising questions about pre-departure testing in India and leading to this “agonising decision,” Hunt said.

“It’s a high-risk situation in India,” Hunt told a televised news briefing in Melbourne.

“The strong, clear view is that there has been no doubt in any of the Commonweal­th advice about this measure or other measures,” he said, referring to Australia’s emergency biosecurit­y decision, which took effect on Monday.

Earlier, Prime Minister Scot Morrison told 2GB radio the ban would be in place for as long as it is needed.

The Australian Human Rights Commission lambasted the decision, urging lawmakers to immediatel­y review the restrictio­ns. The Commision will approach the government directly with its concerns, it said in a statement.

The hashtag #Dictatorsc­ot was trending on

Twiter on Monday as Australian­s reacted to the strict new policy.

“We should be helping Aussies in India return home not jailing them. Let’s fix our quarantine system rather than leave our fellow Australian­s stranded,” Nationals senator Mathew Canavan tweeted. Australia, which has largely contained the novel coronaviru­s, closed its borders to noncitizen­s in March 2020.

Returning residents and citizens must undergo a mandatory two-week hotel quarantine at their own expense. Australia has seen 22,245 cases of community transmissi­on and 910 deaths through the pandemic.

Roughly a quarter of the 35,000 Australian­s stranded overseas are in India, which reported close to 400,000 cases on Friday and more than 200,000 total deaths.

Australia clocked zero cases of community transmissi­on on Monday.

Western Australia reported three cases over the weekend ater a quarantine hotel security guard and two house-mates tested positive for COVID-19. The state reported zero local cases on Monday.

The country’s vaccinatio­n programme has moved slowly, administer­ing just over 2 million doses so far, well short of initial government forecasts of 4 million by the end of March.

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