Australia today opens its borders to vaccinated, skilled workers and foreign students who have been closed for almost two years due to the pandemic covid-19.
The appearance of the new variant strain Omicron of the coronavirus forced the officials to delay for two weeks the opening of the Australian border as they wanted to gather more information about it.
The opening of Australia's borders coincided with the largest increase in the daily number of cases in four months announced by the country's most populous state, New South Wales, although Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the federal government was able to deal with the increase in infections.
"We will have to live with this virus and we will not allow it to drag us back to where we were," he told 4BC radio. "We have the highest vaccination rates, which means we can deal with it. We do not want to give up. "
Australia has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, with almost 90% of the population over the age of 16 fully immunized. At the same time, about 70% of adolescents aged 12 to 15 have also been fully vaccinated.
New South Wales, whose capital is Sydney, has today lifted most restrictions on the unvaccinated, despite a steady rise in Omicron cases.
In the past 24 hours, 1.360 new cases have been identified in the state covid-19, the highest number in more than three months and the highest recorded since the end of the nearly four-month lockdown in October.
New South Wales Health Minister Brad Hazard has warned that the number of cases could reach 25.000 a day by the end of January.
Although the state claims that its health system is responding well to the rise in infections, the Western Australian authorities have announced that they will restrict the entry of people from New South Wales into the state.
The country closed its borders in March 2020 in a bid to curb its spread. covid-19 and has since allowed a very small number of its citizens and permanent residents to return.
The easing of entry measures to Australia is expected to reduce staff shortages, which threatens to hurt the country's economic recovery.
A total of approximately 235.500 cases have been reported in Australia covid-19 and 2.117 deaths.