Australia to reopen to vaccinated tourists, two years after international border shut

With omicron outbreaks across the country and Australians among the most inoculated people in the world, Morrison said it no longer made sense to keep out tourists who have had at least two shots.

“The variant is here in Australia,” he told reporters. “And for those who are coming in who are double-vaccinated, they don’t present any greater risk than those who are already here in Australia. It’s a sensible and I think very important move for us to make as we ... drive Australia back to a position of as much normality as we can achieve.”

Morrison stressed, however, that visitors would be expected to provide proof of vaccination.

“I think events earlier in the year should have sent a very clear message to everyone around the world that is the requirement to enter into Australia,” Morrison told reporters in an apparent allusion to the deportation of unvaccinated tennis star Novak Djokovic last month.

Unvaccinated visitors must have an exemption and will have to quarantine according to local rules, added Minister for Home Affairs Karen Andrews.

The announcement comes as a boost to Australia’s struggling tourism industry and marks the latest phase in a gradual easing of the restrictions that split some families and left tens of thousands of Australians stranded around the world.

For the first 18 months of the pandemic, Australia barred almost all visitors and required returning citizens to pay for two weeks in hotel quarantine. Caps on returning Australians meant that tens of thousands were stuck overseas. Australians also needed to receive an exemption to leave the country.

Restrictions were lifted for vaccinated Australians in November after the country doubly inoculated 80 percent of its eligible population. International students, some foreign workers and family members of citizens and permanent residents were allowed to return starting in mid December, despite an omicron outbreak causing one of the world’s sharpest spikes in infections.

With about 93 percent of Australians aged 12 and above now double-vaccinated and omicron in every state and territory, Morrison said allowing tourists back in would not overload the nation’s hospital system with covid cases.

Infections in Australia have fallen sharply from their peak a month ago, and hospitalizations and patients in intensive care have also begun to decline.

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