A 192-page research report from Australia’s Group of Eight (Go8) universities have urged the Morrison Government to keep Australia’s international border closed to international visitors for at least another six months:
A “Roadmap to Recovery” report from the Group of Eight (Go8) universities urges the federal government to maintain border restrictions for at least another six months…
“Maintaining restrictions on incoming and outgoing travellers gives the Australian government flexibility to pursue either a full elimination strategy or suppression strategy.”
The report says Australians should be barred from travelling overseas for another six months, other than for sanctioned “essential” travel. It says foreigners should only be allowed to enter if their countries have been free from Covid-19 infections for at least four weeks and have border controls that are “identical to Australia’s and stringently enforced” ones – which would in effect rule out incoming travellers for at least six months.
The researchers are right, Australia should close its international border for at least 6 months to a year or risk a second wave of the virus, which could require a second domestic lock down and be much more harmful. New Zealand could be excepted given it has shown similar success in suppressing the virus and has even more stringent controls in place.
It’s a shame that the universities’ marketing departments were not so sensible at the beginning of this pandemic, given they lobbied so hard against the Chinese travel ban and even subsidised Chinese students to circumvent the ban via travelling through third countries like Thailand and Dubai.
Thus, our ‘enlightened’ universities very likely helped to spread COVID-19 initially.
At least they are now ignoring their marketing departments and showing some common sense, based on science. Better late than never.
