Australians welcomed home in 1st step of border reopening amid Covid-19 pandemic

Sydney, Nov 1: As Australia's two largest cities Sydney and Melbourne scrapped overseas arrival restrictions due to Covid-19, hundreds of Australians have begun to fly home, after being stuck overseas since borders first slammed shut in late March 2020.

Fourteen international flights are expected to touch down in Sydney airport on Monday, and passengers from Singapore and Hong Kong are due to arrive at Melbourne airport over the day,
Xinhua news agency reported.

At present, Victoria and New South Wales (NSW) are the only states that have lifted their cap and quarantine requirements for fully vaccinated overseas arrivals.

From Monday, fully vaccinated Australian citizens and permanent residents would also be allowed to leave Australia without a previously required travel exemption.

While announcing the return of regional travel in NSW at regional Dubbo Airport, NSW Premier, Dominic Perrottet praised the lifting of restrictions as "the start of a new journey".

"As we open up, we won't go backwards, we will start to re-join the world, and that's going to be great for the state," he said.

As NSW continues to claw its way back to normalcy, the state recorded 135 new locally acquired cases and four additional deaths in the 24 hours to 8:00 p.m. Sunday night.

The lifting of restrictions for international students, skilled migrants and tourists intending to enter Australia has yet to be finalized.

In NSW 93.6 per cent of the above16 years' population have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine and 87.7 per cent have been fully vaccinated.

Meanwhile Victoria saw another uptick in cases, recording 1,471 new locally acquired cases in the 24 hours to midnight Sunday as well as four deaths, an increase from 1,036 cases reported on Saturday. The state hit its 80 per cent vaccination milestone on Sunday.