Fines, prison time ‘a big call’
Australia’s government is under fire for an ‘‘outrageous’’ decision to impose fines and jail time on Aussies attempting to return home from India amid an escalating coronavirus crisis.
Travellers from India have been blocked from entering Australia until at least May 15, when the decision will be reassessed. Indirect routes via Doha, Dubai, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore have also been closed off as the daily tally of new cases in India nears 400,000.
Anyone attempting to defy the rules will be hit with fines of up to A$66,600 (NZ$71,800), five years in prison or both.
More than 9000 Australians in India are registered as wanting to return, including 650 registered as vulnerable. More than 150 overseas-acquired infections have been reported Australia-wide in the past week, many of them from India.
Senior Labor MP Jason Clare told the ABC the flight ban was ‘‘the right call’’ based on health advice, but criminalising citizens for trying to return was another story.
‘‘It’d be a big call to make it a crime for Australians trying to get home . . . what we should be doing is trying to make it easier.’’
Human Rights Watch’s Australia director, Elaine Pearson, went a step further, calling the response ‘‘outrageous’’.
‘‘Australians have a right of return to their own country,’’ she said. ‘‘The government should be looking for ways to safely quarantine Australians returning from India, instead of
focusing their efforts on prison sentences and harsh punishments for people who are facing desperate conditions and simply trying to return home.’’
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg defended the decision, saying the situation in India was dire and only escalating.
More than 200,000 people have died, and the country has been setting records each day with the tally of new cases. Hospitals are overwhelmed and oxygen supplies are low.
Frydenberg said the measure was drastic but temporary.
‘‘We’re doing everything we can to support India at this very difficult time, (but) we’ve also got to protect Australians.’’
The government is also copping flak over quarantine arrangements, with several state leaders pushing for new national quarantine camps to be established.
■ The United States will restrict travel from India starting on Wednesday, citing a devastating rise in Covid-19 cases in the country and the emergence of potentially dangerous variants of the coronavirus.
With 386,452 new cases yesterday, India now has reported more than 18.7 million since the pandemic began, second only to the US. The Health Ministry also reported 3498 deaths, bringing the total to 208,330. Experts believe both figures are an undercount.
The US this week began delivering therapeutics, rapid virus tests and oxygen to India, along with some materials needed to boost its domestic production of Covid-19 vaccines. A Centres for Disease Control and Prevention team of public health experts is expected to arrive soon to help Indian health officials slow the spread of the virus.
US Vice-president Kamala Harris, who is of Indian descent, called the situation in India a ‘‘great tragedy’’ and said she hadn’t spoken to any of her relatives still living there since the news of the travel ban was made public.
Other restrictions are in place on travel from China, Iran, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Brazil and South Africa, which are or have been hotspots for the coronavirus.
In hopes of taming the monstrous spike in Covid-19 infections, India yesterday opened vaccinations to all adults, launching a huge inoculation effort that is sure to tax the limits of the federal government, the country’s vaccine factories and the patience of its 1.4 billion people.
The world’s largest maker of vaccines is still short of critical supplies – the result of lagging manufacturing and raw material shortages that have delayed the rollout in several states. And even in places where the shots are in stock, the country’s wide economic disparities have made access to the vaccine inconsistent.
Only a fraction of India’s population would be able to afford the prices charged by private hospitals for the shot, experts said, meaning that states will be saddled with immunising the 600 million Indian adults younger than 45, while the federal government gives shots to 300 million healthcare and frontline workers and people older than 45.