As of today, Victoria has had no new cases of new coronavirus infection in Victoria for two consecutive days, and only one returning traveller was diagnosed while quarantining at the hotel.
There are currently 25 active cases of COVID-19 in Victoria, and a total of 19 cases are related to the Holiday Inn epidemic. Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley said that “we are likely to see” more positive cases because thousands of close contacts are still in isolation.
Further testing and monitoring continue, "We should not rule out this possibility," he said.
After the announcement of the city closure last Friday, Melbourne's international flight business was suspended not long after it was opened. The retrospective reason was that multiple hotel employees who had previously appeared at the Holiday Inn Melbourne Airport were diagnosed.
When announcing the release, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews stated that Victoria’s hotel isolation plan "has a higher standard" than other parts of the country, and did not disclose when international flights will resume.
Andrews has now confirmed that international flights in Victoria will be suspended indefinitely. "Due to various reasons, I cannot confirm when these flights will resume."
He said that the delay was because medical experts have been asked to study the impact of British and South African strains on the overall coronavirus response.
means that international flights are likely to continue to be grounded before the relevant departments have an overall understanding of and response measures to the variant strains in the UK and South Africa.
Andrews also emphasized that even if international flights are resumed, Victoria will not accept as many international tourists as Sydney.
The reason is that the Victorian hotel quarantine does not hire private security, and all are police, which makes the Victorian hotel quarantine more expensive.
Therefore, in addition to further research by experts on the virus and vaccination of epidemic prevention staff, Andrews also pinned Victoria’s hopes of opening up international flights to the earlier proposal-"New quarantine facility plan!"
Recently, an infrastructure company put forward a plan,To build a Victorian government's new isolation village outside of Melbourne in just four months will cost up to A$170 million.
The reason is that Andrews previously revealed that the Melbourne government hopes to build a cabin-style accommodation center for isolation to support the hotel isolation plan after the unblocking.
Senior director of construction giant AECOM, Paul Clark, said that building a 300-bed facility at Avalon or Melbourne Airport only costs 45 to 60 million Australian dollars, and can be in 4-6 months or even less. Finished.
The airport is currently regarded as the most likely place to be quarantined. Avalon Airport has more than 1,000 hectares of free land, which is particularly suitable for the construction of permanent facilities.
Airport CEO Justin Giddings said that after the epidemic is over, the center can be used to isolate international students and seasonal workers, as well as provide emergency accommodation during wildfires or other health crises.
For returnees from countries where the epidemic is still in the outbreak stage, the first problem to be solved is hotel isolation. For tourist countries that are currently less affected by the epidemic, the Travel Bubble is a life-saving straw to save their own tourism industry.
In response to this, an aviation expert said that if Australia does not have mass vaccination, the travel bubbles established with neighboring countries will be useless and dangerous.
Since the outbreak, countries have been talking about the "travel bubble"—a plan that allows people to travel freely between countries without being affected by quarantine—but for Australia, this has not yet become reality.
Although New Zealanders were able to visit some states in Australia without being quarantined, the one-way bubble has temporarily closed since the COVID-19 outbreak in Auckland this week.
Tony Webber, senior lecturer at the School of Aeronautics of the University of New South Wales and former chief economist of Qantas, said that introducing any travel bubble now is "futility".
"If we are to build a travel bubble in two countries, then at least in Australia, everyone in both countries must be vaccinated,"He said.
Webber said that the first countries to open up will include New Zealand, Fiji, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Norfolk Island, New Caledonia and Tahiti. Shorter".
If the Pacific island countries’ travel bubble plan is successfully implemented, long-distance trips to Southeast Asian countries will follow.
Australian Tourism Minister Dan Tehan said that the government will consider building tourism with countries such as Vietnam and Singapore Bubbles, as long as the vaccine is promoted internationally with Australia.
When asked about the future of the travel bubble plan, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce pointed out the bubbles in Singapore and Hong Kong. After the COVID-19 outbreak in Hong Kong, this The plan has been postponed.
Virgin said that short-haul international flights will not be opened until at least June, and they are currently paying close attention to whether New Zealand, the Pacific Islands and Indonesia will have a travel bubble plan that is not isolated.
International Air Transport Association IATA vice president of Asia-Pacific region emphasized that travel bubbles may be the main way for governments to reopen borders in the future.
The popularization of vaccines and travel bubble plans are already commonplace talks in Australia for opening international flights, and they have been in dire straits. Australian universities have come out to attack again, hoping that the government will pick up international students to return to Australia as soon as possible.
La Trobe University predicts that due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the sharp decline in the number of international students, the school will bear a financial loss of 170 million Australian dollars in 2021.
In an email to all staff, Professor John Dewar stated that La Trobe University expects that “the decline in revenue in 2021 will be much greater than last year” and that the university’s operating deficit last year was 9.5 million Australian dollars.
"The continuing delay in reopening the international border means that we are unlikely to see international students return to Australia in 2021," he wrote. "This will delay the recovery of income until 2023 or even longer. "_P1p
Professor Dewar said that in order to save money, the university was forced to cut staff salaries, voluntary layoffs and reduce non-salary expenditures.
"Last year was difficult for all of us. At work, we lost valuable colleagues, our salaries were reduced, and we had to adapt to remote work," he said.
"We responded quickly to the epidemic because we quickly realized that its financial impact will be long-term, not short-lived. The rapid actions we took last year laid a solid foundation for the long-term sustainable development of the university. The road."
This is true, not only for universities, but also for the current international students at home or abroad to prepare for long-term "sustainable" development, and hope that everyone's life can be back on track as soon as possible.
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