Suit against Oz travel ban shot down
An emergency legal challenge to Australia’s contentious ban on citizens returning from Covid-hit India failed on Monday, dashing stranded travellers’ hopes of an immediate return. Federal justice Thomas Thawley ruled the government had not overstepped its biosecurity powers in banning Australians from returning home temporarily.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison earlier this month shut the door to all travel from India, fearing a large number of Covidpositive arrivals would overwhelm Australia’s already strained quarantine facilities.
The move stranded an estimated 9,000 Australian citizens and threatened them with large fines and jail time if they tried to dodge the ban and return on non-direct flights.
Thawley ruled that Morrison acted within the law, dashing the hopes of a 73-year-old Australian man who brought the case as he tries to return from Bangalore.
South Africa warns of ‘vaccine apartheid’
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Monday that if wealthy nations hogged Covid-19 shots while millions in poor countries died waiting for them, it would amount to “vaccine apartheid”.
Ramaphosa called on South
Africans to support the recent Covid vaccine IPR protections waiver in a newsletter.
“A situation in which the populations of advanced, rich countries are safely inoculated while millions in poorer countries die in the queue would be tantamount to vaccine apartheid,” he wrote.