Australia limits citizens’ return as Victoria cases reach record
Canberra: The number of Australians allowed to enter the country will be capped to ease pressure on the coronavirus quarantine system.
The National Cabinet, which consists of Prime Minister Scott Morrison and state and territory leaders, agreed on Friday to cut the number of citizens and residents allowed into the country each week by 4000, which Mr Morrison said amounts to “just over half.”
Returning travellers will also be asked to pay for the cost of their 14day mandatory hotel quarantine period.
“We agreed today to a reduction in the number of inbound arrivals into Australia across those ports that are able to accept returning Australian citizens and residents,” Mr Morrison told reporters.
“The decision that we took to reduce the number of returned travellers to Australia at this time was to ensure that we could put our focus on the resources needed to do the testing and the tracing and not have to have resources diverted to other tasks.”
As of 3pm on Friday, a total of 9359 cases have been reported in Australia, including 106 deaths, and 7626 have been reported as recovered from COVID-19, according to the latest figures from the Department of Health.
The department also said that the number of new cases in the last 24 hours is 307.
Of the new cases, 288 were in Victoria, marking the state’s biggest daily increase since the outbreak of the pandemic. And the number of active cases of the virus in Victoria has surpassed 1000.
Residents of Melbourne have officially been advised to wear facemasks when they can’t maintain social distance. Mr Morrison said that the spike in cases in Victoria remains “very concerning.”