All Travellers, Including S’poreans, to Australia Must Now Isolate Themselves for 14 Days Due to COVID-19

There have been a series of measures that have been implemented all over the world in light of the COVID-19 that have certainly raised some eyebrows.

For instance, both Spain and Italy implemented a nationwide lockdown.

NTUC FairPrice was forced to limit the number of toilet paper, rice and instant noodles each individual can buy after everyone decided to panic buy the entire store.

And now:

All Travellers to Australia Must Now Isolate Themselves for 14 Days Due to COVID-19

Let’s say a prayer for anyone in possession of plane tickets to Australia.

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has just announced that everyone arriving in Australia will be required to self-isolate for as long as 14 days.

On the other hand, cruise ship arrivals will be banned for a minimum of 30 days to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

According to Morrison, the first meeting of the national cabinet on Sunday agreed to legislate offences for people who breach the self-isolation rule.

“We will impose a universal compulsory self-isolation requirement on all international arrivals to Australia effective from midnight tonight,” said Morrison.

“All people coming to Australia will be required, will be required, I stress, to self-isolate for 14 days.”

“Further, the Australian government will ban cruise ships from foreign ports from arriving at Australian ports after an initial 30 days and that will go forward on a rolling basis.”

Breaching The Self Isolation Rule Will Be An Offence

Morrison said that, until now, self-isolation had been a “voluntary arrangement” with “no potential sanction against a person for not following that requirement”.

“That will change,” he said, although penalties will be “a matter for the states and territories”.

“If your mate has been to Bali and they come back and they turn up at work and they are sitting next to you, they will be committing an offence.”

Say No To Handshakes

They also want to urge individuals to practice social distancing by refusing handshakes and staying at least 1.5 metres away from people.

This came after the government was criticised for not giving clear instructions on what constituted social distancing.

Morrison explains that “it’s all commonsense” and that you should be “ensuring that you refrain from that sort of physical contact, whether it might be a handshake or something a bit more intimate, unless they’re close family and friends.”

However, chief medical officer Brendan Murphy said that you can still shake the hands of someone who has not returned from abroad recently.

My suggestion?

Just do a Vulcan handshake.

Other Measures

Other measures have been put in place as well.

For instance, on Friday, the Council of Australia Governments decided to discourage “static, non-essential” mass public gatherings of 500 people or more to apply from Monday.

However, to date, Morrison repeated that this would not result in the closure of schools, shops, airports and workplaces as of now.

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Instead, these measures are here to stop the speed of the spread of the coronavirus, so that hospital beds will be available for those who really need them, like “vulnerable Australians”.

“If we continue to manage this but on how the virus impact on Australia, we will be able to ensure that we can continue to provide the services and support, particularly to the most vulnerable Australians most at risk from the coronavirus,” he said.

There Might Be More Restrictions On People’s Movements

Just like the coronavirus situation that’s unpredictable and ever-changing, Morrisons says there, “will be further intrusions, further restrictions on people’s movement and their behaviour” in future in response to changes in medical advice.

Murphy and Health Minister Greg Hunt also entertained the possibility that as advice changes, the measures might escalate to include general lockdowns.

When questioned if Sydney could be locked down and not the rest of the country, Murphy said, “Potentially you could. The Koreans did that for two provinces, very successfully locked them down. Everything is up for consideration.”

The Situation In Sydney

As of today (15 March), the number of new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in New South Wales increased by 22 to 134. Nationally, there are more than 250 cases.

In Victoria, the chief health officer announced that eight new cases had been confirmed on Saturday, bringing the total number of cases in the state to 57.

Vivid Sydney light festival, which drew a record 2.4 million people in 2019 and raked in $172 million into the NSW economy was cancelled as part of the government’s measure to limit non-essential gatherings of more than 500 people.

This decision has been considered “another body blow” for the tourism industry in Australia.