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Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt says Australia is on track to have internal borders lifted by Christmas as the country recorded zero community transmissions for the first time since June 9.
Hunt said free movement between Queensland and New South Wales should occur “as soon as possible”, and said there is a growing medical case for the state to open its border with Sydney.
Darrian Traynor / Getty Images
Australia is on track to lift internal borders by Christmas, as the country recorded zero community broadcasts for the first time since June.
“I have high hopes that now [Queensland] The choice is over that this will remain a medical decision. If it is a medical decision, the very low number of cases … will provide the strongest possible basis for moving to the next step, “Hunt said Sunday.
He said the continued low number of cases in Victoria and New South Wales meant that momentum for a “single domestic national bubble” was growing. Highlighting this later, Hunt took to Twitter to reveal that Australia recorded zero community broadcasts on Sunday, the first time since June 9.
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“We are on track to meet the goal of the prime minister of a country that is internally open by Christmas,” Hunt said.
Rohan Thomson / Getty Images
Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt says free movement between Queensland and New South Wales should occur “as soon as possible”. (File photo)
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, whose government was re-elected on Saturday night, announced last week that the state’s border would reopen to all of New South Wales except the Sydney metropolitan area from Tuesday.
The partial reopening drew a strong rebuke from the New South Wales government and business leaders, including Qantas CEO Alan Joyce, who called it “ridiculous.”
Western Australian Prime Minister Mark McGowan also announced that he would remove his state’s “hard border” as of November 14, but will still require travelers from New South Wales and Victoria to be quarantined for two weeks.
Outlining Australia’s implementation plans for the Covid-19 vaccine, Hunt said the government was still planning to make the first doses available to Australians in March 2021, with priority for healthcare workers and the elderly.
“That guide has been reaffirmed in the last few days and then it will be implemented progressively throughout the year,” he said.
“We would like to see everyone looking to get vaccinated, in what would be a voluntary program, completed over the course of 2021 [and] in the middle of the year seeing the great majority of the population with that access “.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison will bring final implementation plans to Cabinet in the coming weeks.
Hunt also confirmed that the government was close to securing two additional contracts to purchase Covid-19 vaccines, including the widely touted mRNA vaccine.
“An mRNA vaccine, which has never been produced in the world before, but is emerging as a very positive vaccine class, will be part of our portfolio,” he said.
Australia has already reached agreements to access 33.8 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and 51 million doses of a University of Queensland vaccine by CSL if clinical trials are successful.
Hunt said the results of those trials had been “more positive than we expected.”
