"The wait is over," Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Sunday.

For almost two years, the country's external borders had been kept closed.

Australia reopened them completely on Monday, February 21, allowing fully vaccinated tourists to enter its territory.

In detail, travelers will not be able to reach the vast state of Western Australia on Monday, but will have to wait until March 3.

In this region, the authorities have conducted a particularly strict so-called “zero Covid” policy in recent months, cutting it off from the rest of Australia.

The first international flight to Sydney Airport was due to arrive from Los Angeles on Monday at 6:00 a.m. Australian time (9:00 p.m. Sunday in Paris), followed by others from Tokyo, Vancouver and Singapore.

Only 56 international flights were due to land in Australia within 24 hours of reopening, well below levels before the Covid-19 pandemic, but Scott Morrison said he had 'no doubt' that number will rise over time .

Concerns about the reluctance of tourists

To attract tourists, the Australian government has launched an advertising campaign of 40 million Australian dollars (nearly 25 million euros).

But the Australian Council (ATEC) responsible for international tourism spoke of "worrying signs" of the possible reluctance of foreigners to come to Australia, due to the various internal restrictions on travel, and the image that the draconian closure would have left. country for two years.

Closing borders has cost 2.27 billion euros each month, according to the country's Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Strict restrictions

The island had closed its borders in March 2020, trying to take advantage of its insularity to protect itself from the pandemic.

For several months, this draconian closure and a strict testing and tracing policy helped contain the effects of the virus.

But the arrival of the Omicron variant then aggravated the situation, leading to tens of thousands of contaminations and tens of deaths per day.

In total in almost two years, the Covid-19 has killed 4,913 people in Australia.

Some 15,298 new cases were recorded there on Sunday, well below the historic peak of 277,619 cases on January 30.

During these two years, the Australians were, most of the time, not allowed to leave their country, and only a few visitors obtained an exemption to enter the territory, which earned the country the nickname of "fortress Australia".

With Reuters and AFP

The summary of the

France 24 week invites you to come back to the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news everywhere with you!

Download the France 24 app

google-play-badge_EN