Australia has announced a dramatic cut in the number of people who will be permitted to enter the country Friday, as it struggles to hold coronavirus clusters that plunged major towns into lockdown.
With almost half of the nation’s population under stay-at-home orders, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said quotas for overseas arrivals would be cut by around 50 percent to help prevent further outbreaks.
Under the current “zero Covid” strategy, just 6,000 people are allowed to enter Australia on overseas commercial flights each week and arrivals must undergo mandatory two weeks hotel quarantine.
That quota will be cut to around 3,000 by the middle of July, Morrison indicated, although the government will at the same time step up its private repatriation flights.
Morrison announced the decision amid growing anger over repeated snap lockdowns, the leakiness of hotel quarantine facilities and what critics have dubbed a vaccine “stroll out.”
More than 18 months into the pandemic, less than eight percent of adults have been fully vaccinated.
