SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA) – Melbourne, which is Australia’s second-largest city, opened its doors to overseas visitors for the first time in five months on Monday. The new arrivals will put to test the condition of the state of Victoria’s revamped hotel quarantine system.
Since March, Australia has closed its frontiers to non-citizens. However, airports in Melbourne stopped welcoming any arrivals in late June following an outbreak of the novel coronavirus at two hotels where the arrivals were being quarantined.
More than 20,000 infections were recorded in Victoria when hotel staff contracted the virus from people returning from overseas.
Laxity of private contractors in adhering to protocol has been widely blamed for the outbreak. As hundreds of people are expected to arrive in Victoria each week, authorities said police officers will be deployed to enforce the rules.
New arrivals will no longer be allowed to leave their rooms as per the revised hotel quarantine curbs.
It is similar to the system in place in Sydney, capital of New South Wales, which is the nation’s largest state, accommodating thousands of people who are returning without any new clusters.
As New South Wales marked just one local infection last month, it has eased more social distancing norms.
All venues can welcome people from Monday, dubbed as freedom day, with a social distancing norm of one person for every 2 square metres. Earlier venues were restricted to one patron per 4 square meters.
However, there are no curbs on the number of people attending weddings and funerals.
Western Australia announced on Tuesday that curbs on people arriving from Victoria and New South Wales will be done away with. This ensures that all internal borders in the country are removed, giving a boost to domestic tourism and airlines such as Qantas and Virgin Australia.
