SYDNEY TO ALLOW OVERSEAS ARRIVALS WITHOUT QUARANTINE

SYDNEY— The Australian city of Sydney will allow the entry of fully vaccinated citizens from overseas from Nov. 1 without the need for quarantine, authorities said on Friday.

The decision comes as New South Wales state, of which Sydney is capital, is expected to reach an 80-percent first-vaccination dose rate on Saturday, ahead of the rest of Australia by several weeks.

“We need to rejoin the world. We can’t live here in a hermit kingdom. We’ve got to open up,” New South Wales premier Dominic Perrottet said.

Australia closed its borders in March 2020 in response to the coronavirus pandemic, allowing entry almost exclusively only to citizens and permanent residents, who have to spend two weeks in hotel quarantine at their expense.

As well as ditching plans for home quarantine, which had been expected to replace hotel stays, Perrottet said New South Wales would welcome all overseas arrivals.

Overruled

But he was quickly overruled by Prime Minister Scott Morrison who said the government would stick with plans to first open the border to citizens and permanent residents. “This is about Australian residents and citizens first,” Morrison said.

“The (federal) government has made no decision to allow other visa holders ... to come into Australia under these arrangements,” he said.

Unvaccinated travelers from overseas will also be allowed back into New South Wales, but only 210 each week and they will have to undergo hotel quarantine upon arrival.

Other borders closed

Australians have been unable to travel internationally for more than 18 months without a government waiver, and thousands of citizens and permanent residents in other countries have been unable to return after Canberra imposed a strict cap on arrivals to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Many of these are now expected to return via Sydney, even though some COVID-19 free states in Australia have closed their borders to New South Wales.

Qantas Airways said it would bring forward the restart of international flights from Sydney to London and Los Angeles by two weeks to Nov. 1.

—AFP WE’RE HERE Passengers push their luggage as they prepare to board a bus to take them to mandatory hotel quarantine at the international airport in Sydney on Friday.