Covid: Oz PM signals reopening borders to international tourists

SYDNEY: Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Sunday that the reopening of the country’s borders to international tourists may not be far away, adding that the parliament will debate the matter this week.

Australia, which shut its borders in March of 2020, has been going through a staggered reopening in recent months, allowing in only its citizens and residents, skilled migrants, international students and certain seasonal workers.

Morrison’s popularity has been sliding in recent months, however, in part reflecting questions about his handling of the Omicron outbreak, and he faces pressure from a federal election that must be called by May. While the highly transmissible Omicron variant keeps spreading, hospitalisations and deaths have been stabilising, with News Corp newspapers over the weekend quoting unnamed sources as saying that Australia may reopen its borders within two or three weeks.

The first 2022 sitting of the Australian parliament is to start on Monday and Morrison said that reopening borders to tourists will be addressed “very early on”.

New Zealand PM urges unity on Waitangi Day

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern urged New Zealanders on Sunday to unite in their battle against Covid-19, as the pandemic forced the country to celebrate its national Waitangi Day online. A growing outbreak of the highly transmissible Omicron variant has pushed all commemorations online, prompting Ardern to urge vaccinations.

“We all have a duty to do everything we can to protect our communities with all the tools that science and medicine have given us,” Ardern said in a prerecorded speech. “Togetherness is something we have shown throughout the last few years. I know it hasn’t always been easy ... But together we have, and we continue to, overcome.”

New record as daily cases in Russia at 180k

Russia is reporting a record daily count of new coronavirus infections of 180,071, a tenfold spike from a month ago as the highly contagious Omicron variant spreads through the country.

The figure released by the state coronavirus task force on Sunday was about 2,800 cases more than recorded the previous day and continued a surge that began in mid-January, when daily new cases were around 17,000.

Although the number of infections has increased dramatically in recent weeks, the task force reported that daily deaths from Covid-19 are holding steady or marginally declining: 661 deaths were recorded over the past 24 hours, compared with 796 on January 6.

{ SCOTT MORRISON } AUSTRALIAN PM We are looking forward to be able to make that decision to open up our borders and welcome visitors back to again.