Cautious welcome after flight ban lifted
Australian Defence Minister Peter Dutton is insisting that the country’s quarantine system will be able to cope when a travel ban is lifted and flights from India resume.
The first planeload of Australians from India was due to land this morning, after flights were suspended for several weeks to allow the Howard Springs quarantine facility in the Northern Territory to deal with positive Covid-19 cases before more potentially infectious people arrived.
Dutton said the federal government had been working closely with the Northern Territory state government since the India travel ban was imposed. ‘‘We have put in other measures around pre-flight testing and making sure if we’re bringing people out of a zone like India at the moment, we can do it safely.’’
Meanwhile, 10 million people in Britain could have their second dose of vaccine brought forward, as the government tries to stop a faster spreading Indian coronavirus variant from delaying the end of restrictions.
Cases of the strain have more than doubled in a week, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson said yesterday he was ‘‘anxious’’ about the threat it posed to the lifting of the lockdown.
Indoor mixing will go ahead as planned on Monday, despite calls from scientists and others for it to be postponed.
Public Health England said yesterday that 1313 cases of the B.1.617.2 variant had been identified, up from 520 last week. More than half of the cases are in London and the northwest. It has been deemed a ‘‘variant of concern’’ by the World Health Organisation because of how fast it spreads.
The government is considering bringing forward second doses of the Pfizer vaccine for groups of older people, to prevent them requiring hospital treatment if there is a big third wave of infections.
About 10 million people in the top priority groups are yet to have both doses. While most over-65s have had both, only about a quarter of people in their 50s have.
Americans who are fully vaccinated can now go without masks or physical distancing in most cases, even when they are indoors or in large groups, paving the way for a full reopening of society.
The change represents a huge shift symbolically and practically for pandemic-weary Americans, millions of whom have lived with the restrictions for more than a year. A growing number have criticised the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for being overly cautious.
More than 154 million Americans have had at least one shot, and 117 million are fully vaccinated, about 35 per cent of the population.
‘‘We have all longed for this moment when we can get back to some sense of normalcy,’’ CDC director Rochelle Walensky said yesterday.
The relaxation of mask-wearing does not apply to airplanes, buses, trains and other public transportation, to healthcare settings, or where state or local restrictions still require them. Some business settings may still require masks, especially since some workers may remain unvaccinated.
The US is seeing the lowest number of new daily cases in eight months, and deaths have decreased from a high of about 3000 per day on average in January, to about 600 per day.