Health

Australia closes borders indefinitely due to pandemic

Sydney, Australia, Aug 7 (efe-epa).- Australia, which is fighting a strong outbreak of COVID-19 in the city of Melbourne, will keep its international borders closed indefinitely, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Friday.

The Morrison closed its borders in March at the start of the new coronavirus pandemic, and restricted entry to the country to Australian residents and citizens, who must serve a 14-day quarantine in designated hotels under strict surveillance.

We also agreed that international travel constraints on inbound arrivals to Australia should be continued in their current form,” Morrison said at a press conference in Canberra. “We look forward to, at some point, that that might be able to be altered. But at this point, we are not going to put any further strain on the quarantine arrangements around the country and they will remain in place now for some months.”

Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in Melbourne, which began at the end of June and is attributed to a breach of quarantine in international travelers’ hotels, the airport was closed.

Sydney airport, the largest in the country, has imposed a limit of 350 passengers per day, while others such as Perth and Brisbane allow between 70 and 75 daily international entries, in addition to charging about $ 2,166 for quarantine in hotels.

Australia, which had reactivated its economy after having suppressed the virus in its territory, faces a second wave, mainly of local transmissions that have clustered in Melbourne, and has forced the authorities of the state of Victoria, to enact the total confinement of its almost 5 million inhabitants.

Victoria, which on Friday reported 450 cases and 11 deaths, went from having about 2,200 cases at the end of June to about 13,990, more than half of the more than 20,000 registered throughout Australia to date.

The state of New South Wales, on “high alert” due to several coronavirus outbreaks, mainly in Sydney, reported 11 infections on Friday, while South Australia reported two other new cases. EFE-EPA

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