COVID: Australia reopens international borders

Australia has fully reopened its international borders on Monday, allowing vaccinated travelers into the country close to two years after coronavirus-linked restrictions were imposed.

With over 50 international flights scheduled to land in Australia during the day, the country is hoping to revive its tourism and hospitality sectors, which took a severe battering since the start of the pandemic. Several families were also reunited after one of the strictest lockdowns in the world.

"It is a very exciting day, one that I have been looking forward to for a long time, from the day that I first shut that border right at the start of the pandemic," Prime Minister Scott Morrison said.

Australia switched its COVID prevention strategy from extreme suppression with relentless lockdowns to living with the virus after achieving high vaccination levels. Over 94% of people over 16 are now fully vaccinated, according to officials. The country's gradual reopening of borders started in November when skilled migrants and international students were allowed to fly into Australia.

Here are the latest major coronavirus developments from around the world:

Europe

The German government plans to make travel easier in time for Easter, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach told a German newspaper on Sunday. To do this, Germany will only apply the "high-risk" label to countries facing coronavirus variants that are more dangerous than omicron.

The changes are due to take effect on March 4, he told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung.

A day after recording 73,867 new infections and 22 deaths linked to the virus, Germany is expecting its first delivery of the Novavax vaccine on Monday. Close to 1.4 million doses are set to arrive.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the end of all COVID-linked legal curbs in England, close to two years after the virus sparked UK's worst health crisis in generations.

Johnson said in a speech that the country was "moving from government restrictions to personal responsibility'' as part of a plan for treating COVID-19 like other transmissible illnesses such as flu.

Free testing will be scrapped. Those who are ill should stay at home, he said, but will no longer be legally required to do so and will not receive increased sick pay as they did under a scheme introduced earlier in the pandemic.

"We now have sufficient levels of immunity to complete the transition from protecting people with government interventions to relying on vaccines and treatments as the first line of defense,'' Johnson said, despite warnings from scientists that his plan will weaken their ability to track and monitor the country's level of serious infection.

In Bulgaria all "green certificate" restrictions will be dropped on March 20, the government has announced. This means that entry into restaurants, non-essential shops, and other public venues will no longer require proof of vaccination, recovery from a COVID-19 infection, or a negative test result for entry.

When it was introduced in October, the scheme prompted protests aross the country. Bulgaria has the lowest vaccine uptake in the EU, with less than 30% of the population having received a full primary vaccine course and less than 10% with a booster shot.

Oceania

Police in New Zealand said anti-vaccine demonstrators threw human waste at them on Monday, as authorities attempt to place roadblocks around a camp built by demonstrators outside Wellington's parliament building.

"Seven officers sustained injuries during the operation, ranging from scratches to an ankle injury," they said in a statement. "Some officers also had human waste thrown over them by protesters."

Offering a semblance of hope, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the country would lift vaccine mandates and social distancing measures after the omicron variant had peaked: "We all want to go back to the way life was. And we will, I suspect sooner than you think."

"But when that happens, it will be because easing restrictions won't compromise the lives of thousands of people – not because you demanded it," she added, addressing protestors.

Asia

Close to 73% of respondents to a recent opinion poll in Japan felt that the government’s rollout of booster shots has been very slow, the Kyodo news agency reported. 

At the end of last week, only 12% of Japan’s population had received booster shots even though close to 30% of the country is 65 or older, making them more vulnerable to the virus. 

However, 54.1% of the respondents approved of how the government tackled the coronavirus overall.

Americas

Police in Canada have secured downtown Ottawa after two days of a tense standoff with protests, ending a three-week occupation of the Canadian capital.

While the protesters initially wanted an end to cross-border vaccine mandates for truck drivers, the blockade quickly turned into a demonstration against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the government.

Trudeau invoked rarely used emergency powers to clear the protests.

see,es/dj (AFP, dpa, AP, Reuters)