Australia accelerates its plans to allow international travel

Australia will lift its bans on international travel in November under a plan that Prime Minister Scott Morrison outlined Friday. It is the second time in 10 days that officials have accelerated the country’s plans to ease travel restrictions.

Until last month, Australia was poised to keep its borders closed into 2022. The tourism minister, Dan Tehan, then said that they could reopen by Christmas.

Once the borders start to open, fully vaccinated Australian citizens and permanent residents still will need to quarantine at home for seven days upon entry. Foreign tourists will not immediately be able to visit, but the government said it was working toward allowing them to come in.

“It’s time to give Australians their lives back,” Morrison said, announcing that he would begin to reverse a policy that since March 2020 has only allowed some Australians and others to enter the country and blocked all outbound trips except for essential work.

Australia’s tough COVID-19 restrictions, including its strict border rules and local lockdowns, have been praised for helping to contain infections, but also have separated families.

As vaccinations speed up, Morrison is urging state leaders to ease lockdown measures that have challenged the economy and subjected over half the population to strict lockdown orders for months.

The moves come amid a recent surge of infections nationwide. In Victoria, the state that includes Melbourne, authorities reported a record 1,438 daily cases on Thursday, a third of which were traced to illegal social gatherings.

Starting next month, various regions will reopen at different times according to their vaccination rates. States and territories will be able to reopen to international travel once they fully vaccinate 80% of their eligible residents. New South Wales, which includes Sydney, is on track to be the first region to cross the 80% threshold and could become the first test for Morrison’s push to allow Australians to travel internationally.About 44% of Australia’s population has been fully vaccinated, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford.