MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Australia recorded one locally transmitted coronavirus case overnight, health officials said on Saturday, as states began to relax travel bans on signs an outbreak in the northern state of Queensland has been contained.
The case in western Sydney is likely linked a known cluster in New South Wales, the most populous state, which recorded 11 cases in hotel quarantine, contact tracers say.
Australia has halved the number of returning travelers that it will accept, to lower the risk of highly infectious strains seeping into the community, as occurred at a site in Queensland two weeks ago.
Emirates Airline said Friday it would suspend flights between Dubai and Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane by early next week until further notice.
Queensland’s chief health officer, Jeannette Young, told a news briefing there was “every chance we have contained this cluster” thanks to quick work, especially in the state capital Brisbane.
A two-week infection cycle has elapsed since a cleaner at a Brisbane hotel tested positive for the highly infectious coronavirus strain first detected in Britain, a sign health officials say suggests that efforts, including a three-day city wide lockdown, has stopped its spread.
As a result, Victoria and South Australia states will reopen borders to travelers from Brisbane within 24 hours, as long as they submit to coronavirus testing once they return.
Victoria may make a similar move in coming days with neighbouring New South Wales, given signals that it has also controlled an outbreak there that emerged before Christmas, said Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews.
Borders between Australia’s two most populous states have been closed since Jan. 1.
“This is not a matter of locking Victorians out of their own state. It is about keeping the virus out of our state,” he told a news briefing in Victoria’s capital Melbourne, which withstood one of the world’s harshest early lockdowns last year.
“It’s not about being popular. It is about doing what must be done to keep our state safe and to make sure that we can continue to rebuild, to heal the wounds of 2020 and to make sure that we can recover and guarantee that 2021 is a very different year.”
Australia, which has logged 15 infections hotel quarantine, has been one of the world’s most successful nations in managing the coronavirus spread, with about 28,700 infections and 909 deaths.
(Reporting by Melanie Burton; Editing by William Mallard)
