Australian border to reopen for first time in pandemic

GETTY IMAGES Australia will end its international travel ban next month when most of its population becomes fully vaccinated

Australia will reopen its international border from November, giving long-awaited freedoms to vaccinated citizens and their relatives.

Since March 2020, Australia has had some of the world's strictest border rules - even banning its own people from leaving the country.

The policy has been praised for helping to suppress Covid, but it has also controversially separated families.

"It's time to give Australians their lives back," PM Scott Morrison said.

People would be eligible to travel when their state's vaccination rate hit 80%, he told a press briefing on Friday.

Travel would not immediately be open to foreigners, but the government said it was working "towards welcoming tourists back to our shores".

Publish : 2021-10-01 15:04:00

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