Aussies lock out visitors over variant

Australia has closed its borders to nine African nations following the emergence of a new Covid-19 variant.

In addition, Australians who have been, or are due to arrive in South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, the Seychelles, Malawi and Mozambique within the last 14 days will be ordered into immediate supervised quarantine.

Health Minister Greg Hunt and chief medical officer Paul Kelly said the move was required after the World Health Organisation renamed Omicron a “variant of concern”.

In addition, non-citizens who have been in those nine countries in the past 14 days will not be able to enter Australia.

International students and skilled migrants who have been in any of the nine countries in the past two weeks will not be allowed to enter Australia, and all flights from the nine countries have been suspended for 14 days “as a matter of precaution”.

Hunt said he wanted to emphasise how “well-placed” Australia was to fight the Omicron challenge.

“[But] on the basis of medical advice, the Australian government will be implementing additional precautionary border security measures in order to protect Australians while more is learnt about the nature and impact of the Omicron variant of concern,” he said.

“There are currently no known cases of the Omicron variant in Australia.”

Australia does not receive any direct flights from South Africa, however repatriation flights have arrived into the Howard Springs quarantine facility.

There are currently 20 people in that facility who arrived from South Africa last week.

One person has tested positive to Covid19, with authorities yet to confirm what strain that person has.