Australia unlikely to fully open borders in 2021

Australia could be in for another year of international border closures and minimal overseas travel, despite plans to complete nation-wide vaccinations by October.

The head of Australia's health department Professor Brendan Murphy, believes it is unlikely international borders will substantially reopen this year, even if most people are vaccinated against coronavirus. He downplayed the prospect of a widespread easing of border restrictions, meaning dreams of international travel this year remain on hold.

Professor Murphy, who urged Prime Minister Scott Morrison to shut the borders last year has made the grim prediction this morning as the first anniversary of the international border closure approaches on February 1, He said that it’s too early to say whether borders can reopen this year.

Professor Murphy’s prediction is grim news for thousands of tourism operators at home, aviation companies and families desperate to see loved ones overseas.

Last week, Qantas reopened bookings for international flights and is now taking bookings for flights across its entire international network from July 1, 2021.

It was expected flights to Asian destinations, including Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan, would also resume on July 1.

“Recently we have aligned the selling of our international services to reflect our expectation that international travel will begin to restart from July 2021.”

But Professor Murphy’s comments suggest that’s premature.

“I think that we’ll go most of this year with still substantial border restrictions – even if we have a lot of the population vaccinated, we don’t know whether that will prevent transmission of the virus,” Professor Murphy said.

“ Reason is that even though the vaccination will stop people getting the virus, we still don’t know if it will stop them spreading it to others” Professor Murphy added.

Prof Murphy said he was careful with predicting more than two or three months ahead, given how rapidly changes occurred.

“I think at the moment, we've got this light at the end of the tunnel – the vaccine. So we're going to go as safely and as fast as we can to get our population vaccinated and then we'll look at what happens.”

Meanwhile, Australian authorities are chasing more details after Norway reported a small number of very frail people died after receiving the Pfizer vaccine.

Health Minister Greg Hunt says it may influence what advice the Therapeutic Goods Administration provides for Australia's vaccine rollout.

Mr Hunt says at this stage there is no change to Australia's planned vaccine program, which is due to start next month.