Australia yesterday defended its decision to penalize its own citizens entering the country within two weeks of being in COVID-ravaged India, saying that it had a “strong, clear and absolute” belief that the move was legal.
Australian Minister of Health Greg Hunt pointed to the alarming surge of COVID-19 cases in India and the pressure on Australia’s healthcare system as reasons to pause travel until Saturday next week.
Australia’s quarantine hotels have seen a 1,500 percent spike in COVID-19 cases from India since March, raising questions about pre-departure testing in India and leading to this “agonizing decision,” Hunt said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“It’s a high-risk situation in India,” Hunt told a televised news briefing in Melbourne.
“The strong, clear view is that there has been no doubt in any of the commonwealth advice about this measure or other measures,” he said, referring to Australia’s emergency biosecurity decision, which took effect yesterday.
Earlier yesterday, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison told 2GB radio that the ban would be in place for as long as it is needed.
Photo: Bloomberg
The Australian Human Rights Commission slammed the decision, urging lawmakers to immediately review the restrictions and saying that it would directly approach the government with its concerns.
The hashtag #DictatorScott was trending on Twitter yesterday as Australians reacted to the strict new policy.
“We should be helping Aussies in India return home, not jailing them. Let’s fix our quarantine system rather than leave our fellow Australians stranded,” Australian Senator Matthew Canavan wrote on Twitter.
Australia, which has largely contained COVID-19, closed its borders to non-citizens in March last year.
Returning residents must undergo a mandatory two-week hotel quarantine at their own expense.
About one-quarter of the 35,000 Australians stranded overseas are in India.
The country’s vaccination program has moved slowly, so far administering just over 2 million doses, well short of initial government forecasts of 4 million by the end of March.
At its current pace, Australia’s adult population is likely to be fully vaccinated by August 2023, projections by the Australian Broadcasting Corp showed.
The government has cited a global COVID-19 vaccine shortage and health concerns around the AstraZeneca shot, on which Australia’s vaccination program was based. Australia has imposed age restrictions on the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Over the weekend, the Telegraph reported that Britain secretly allowed AstraZeneca to use its UK supply chain to produce vaccines for key ally Australia in return for access to 10 million doses from India.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
RSS