Australia will not change its rules around international arrivals from the United Kingdom despite a new strain of COVID-19 spreading in England.
Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said Australia would continue to "welcome" overseas arrivals from the UK and while authorities were investigating the new virus strain, it does not yet pose a significant threat to the Australian community.
READ MORE: Evidence UK virus strain is a mutation 'not convincing', expert says
"We don't believe there's any reason to change our border arrangements in relation to people coming from the UK," Professor Kelly said.
"Our view is that this is a concern in the UK.
"But here in Australia, we have our ways of dealing with people coming from overseas in terms of our hotel quarantine system, and that has been extremely effective, extremely effective in controlling any virus that may be coming from other parts of the world."
Professor Kelly said preliminary evidence on the new strain does not provide sufficient reason to change international border restrictions.
"There is no evidence at the moment that it has any effect on the severity of the illness from the virus," he said.
"There is no evidence at the moment that it interferes with the vaccine.
"There is no evidence at the moment that it interferes with diagnostic tests."
Mr Kelly said the level of genomic testing is also not sufficient to determine how widespread the new strain is.
"There's been around about 1.5 million cases reported in the UK, of those about 69,000 have had genomic analysis and of those 69,000, 3000 are of this new strain," he said.
In Europe, a growing list of nations have barred travel from the UK and others are considering similar action, amid fears about the new strain sweeping across England.
France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Ireland and Bulgaria all announced restrictions on UK travel, hours after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that Christmas shopping and gatherings in southern England must be canceled because of rapidly spreading infections blamed on the new coronavirus variant.
Professor Kelly said unlike many of the countries overseas shutting their borders to the UK, Australia's quarantine program is a defining factor in keeping international borders open.
More than 77 million people have so far been diagnosed with COVID-19 worldwide since the pandemic began and more than 1.7 million people have died.
There were 21 new cases of COVID-19 diagnosed in Australia yesterday, most of which are connected to Sydney's Northern Beaches cluster.
"Importantly there has been no new deaths for some time," Professor Kelly said.
"Hospitalisations remain extremely low. There are only 22 people in Australia right now in hospital.
"No person in intensive care, and therefore, of course, no-one on ventilation."
Australia to wait for final approval on vaccine
Professor Kelly also provided an update on Australia's progress with securing a COVID-19 vaccine, saying plans were being finalised but the country would not go ahead with a vaccine on an emergency basis.
"We are continuing with all of our planning, as has been already outlined in our strategy for vaccines, including the prioritisation process, including specific arrangements and agreements with every state and territory," he said.
READ MORE: Biden receives first dose of COVID-19 vaccine
"The plan is to those implementation plans completed in early January."
Professor Kelly said top health experts from each state and territory would meet tomorrow to talk through "practical matters" about the implementation of the vaccine strategy.
He said Australia would not follow other nations around the world in implementing a vaccine without a final approval for open distribution to the population.
READ MORE: EU approves COVID-19 vaccine, first shots expected in days
"There are several countries in the world that have emergency-use authorisation, because they have emergencies," Professor Kelly said.
"They need to get on with it. Same in the UK. Same in Europe overnight.
"We are not going down that pathway because we don't have anywhere near that need right now.
"But we're certainly not stopping in our preparations."
from 9News https://ift.tt/2WybkqW
via IFTTT
0 Comments