What does Australia’s opening up mean for India: new prospects for India and its travelers post covid-19

Australia Travel: In the pandemic time, we have witnessed almost all the countries imposing a ban on international travel to and from their countries. All the international borders were closed with only one reason behind it- to prevent the spreading of the virus.

Curbing the virus is a real tough job and therefore no country could have afforded the spread of the virus from other countries to their own. However, travel had been very bad for many people, especially the students and the businessmen. Students that have paid quite a huge sum of money were not even able to see their campus and were forced to take their lectures on laptops and computers.

Moreover, the travel ban halted business meetings and work travels, thereby causing problems to many businesses. The lockdown of international borders also completely destroyed the export prospects. However, things have changed quite a lot now and international borders are open once again.

The sole credit for this goes to the COVID-19 vaccines. The effective rollout of vaccines in countries across the globe have resumed the completely locked economic activities and has led to the opening up of international barriers. Many countries have opened their borders for travellers across the globe, which is also giving a boost to their economy. In this article, we will be discussing about one such country which has recently opened up its international borders and have lifted the barriers.

Australia

A country that had imposed the strictest bans and other COVID-19 restrictions in the world has recently lifted its travel ban. It was an 18-month long ban but now the country has decided its borders from the month of November and therefore allow citizens and permanent residents to leave the country.

However, there is one catch. The opening up of the 18-month travel ban will be linked to individual states and territories in the country. This would directly lead to some parts of the country opening up earlier than the other parts. 

Let us discuss the restrictions which were imposed earlier by the country. 

In order to curb the spread of the virus in the country, the country’s borders were closed in the month of March 2020. Since then, only a very few citizens and permanent residents were allowed to come back to the country.

The allowed citizens and residents were subject to various quota restrictions as well as the mandatory 14 day quarantine period. It was done in a hotel and at the expense of the residents and citizens only, with no liability of the government. The restrictions were very harsh on the citizens of Australia.

Several thousand citizens of the country were left stranded outside of their own home country due to these heavy restrictions. 

As per the proposed plans, the country will open the restrictions on travelling on the basis of territories and states opening and expanding their home quarantine systems. This opening up of the country will act as a relief for all those citizens and permanent residents which have been away from their homes for such a long period of time.

Moreover, the country has been also expanding the list of vaccines that it has approved. Currently, it has also named China’s Sinovac as well as India’s Covishield in the list of approved vaccines. 

What about the foreign travellers to Australia? 

According to the reports, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said that, as of now, the prime interest of the opening of the borders of the country is to allow the citizens and permanent residents to leave the country, which they were not allowed to do earlier. However, when talked about the prospects of foreign travellers entering the country, further changes and relaxation in the restrictions are expected to allow those travellers to enter.

Moreover, the reports have suggested that the prospects of allowing the entering of foreign travellers into the nation were being talked about while making policies for the opening up of restrictions, but the timeline for the same is still uncertain.

Travel has always been a key player in providing a boost to the economy, and during these times while all the economies across the globe have suffered and are looking for a revival, travel will surely play a major role. Therefore, in the upcoming time, the barriers to the travel of foreign visitors to the country will also be lifted. 

Earlier, people inside the country were allowed to leave Australia only after there was a compelling business or humanitarian reason. However, with the current relaxation, this problem will also be solved. 

Talking about travelling reminds me of discussing the condition of Indian travellers. Ever since the second wave of the COVID-19 virus broke out in our country, and completely destroyed the healthcare sector of the whole nation, many nations across the globe decided to ban travel to and from India.

The highly fatal variant of the COVID-19 virus which spread in the country during the second wave was highly contagious and therefore it was the optimal decision of the countries to ban travel from India, in order to prevent the variant to come to their country. However, now that our country is making progress in vaccinating its citizens, things have started to change.

The effective vaccine rollout has paced the rate of daily vaccination. Recently, our country recorded a level as high as 2 million jabs in a very single day. Many countries have now opened their barriers for Indian travellers, which we shall discuss. 

Countries like the United States of America, Thailand and Canada have now allowed Indian travellers to visit their countries.

Earlier, Canada had banned direct flights to and from Indian. Similar restrictions were imposed by the other listed countries too. However, now these restrictions have been relaxed. Some protocols such as carrying as carrying negative RT-PCR reports as well as vaccination certificate is still necessary, in order to ensure proper safety of every person. However, mandatory hotel quarantine is not necessary now. 

Even for the United Kingdoms, which till now was an area of concern as travel from India to the country was not completely allowed, the current scenario is changing. The updated certification of vaccine format has recently been adopted by COWIN has the potential of changing the scenario and therefore allow the Indian travellers to fly to that country without undergoing the mandatory quarantine requirements as well as other strict restrictions. 

A number of other countries such as Germany, Spain, UAE, Maldives, Turkey and much more countries have now also opened the barriers to travel and have allowed Indian citizens to enter their countries.

This relaxation in the restrictions has been a piece of very great news for all the citizens of our country. Getting back on the topic of Australia, the opening up of the restrictions after 18 long months will be really great for the economy of the country. It will surely boost up the travel businesses and other related services and would therefore directly boost the growth of the economy. Moreover, it would also provide benefits to the international students to finally visit their campuses and attend live lectures and also to the businessmen as they would be able to resume their meetings and business. 

Edited by Sanjana Simlai.