National cabinet adopts coronavirus pre-flight testing, masks on planes

[Neferti]

National cabinet adopts coronavirus pre-flight testing, masks on planes

Inbound travellers to Australia must be tested for COVID-19 before getting on a plane, and overall numbers will be temporarily cut.

National cabinet also agreed masks would be made mandatory on all domestic and international flights, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced on Friday.

Anyone who tested positive themselves or had a household contact who had tested positive while overseas would not be allowed on to a plane headed for Australia.

Chief medical officer Paul Kelly admitted the testing was not fool proof, as an individual could later test positive, but it was an added measure that would boost Australia's defences.

All workers involved in the quarantine process, including cleaners, transport workers, medical staff and more, will now be subject to daily testing nationally.

They had previously been required to get tested once a week.

Brisbane is set to be placed into a three-day lockdown from 6pm on Friday, after a hotel quarantine cleaner tested positive to the UK strain of the virus.

Professor Kelly warned anyone who had been in the Greater Brisbane area since January 2 that they should assume the restrictions in Brisbane now applied to them. They should isolate, get tested and watch for any symptoms.

The number of international travellers returning to Australia will be reduced until February 15.

Arrivals in New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland will be reduced by 50 per cent. The number of returned travellers arriving in Victoria would not change as it was already operating below 50 per cent capacity.

Mr Morrison announced no specific change to international arrivals for the ACT as he said the smaller airports were operating on bespoke arrangements that would be negotiated going forward.

Mr Morrison endorsed the approach taken by the Queensland government to lock down Greater Brisbane in response to the identified case.

"The situation in Brisbane is a serious situation," he said.

"Yes, we know there is only one case. But what we do know is that this new strain is some 70 per cent more transmissible than the previous strains of the virus.

"This strain is likely to become, in the very near future, the dominant strain. We anticipate that this will become the more dominant strain of the virus globally.

"So the idea that it somehow can be contained just out of the United Kingdom is a false hope."

He said the decision to lock down despite having, so far, only one confirmed case was "proportionate" to the level of risk presented by this strain.

Professor Kelly said the three-day lockdown was not aimed at controlling the virus but about giving contact tracers a head start in discovering all possible contacts.

Mr Morrison said 80 per cent of Australians currently registered overseas were in countries where the UK coronavirus strain had been recorded.

However, Mr Morrison said it was not feasible, or medically advisable, to shut Australia off from the world and ban all flights into the country. For Australia to be able to function, he said, supplies needed to be able to be brought in, including vaccines.

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/ ... /?cs=17318