Australia Enters Tenth Day Without Local Cases

A man walks in the City of Brisbane, Australia (Nicolas Weldingh // Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Australia, on Wednesday, January 27, entered its tenth day without new local cases of COVID-19. New South Wales (NSW) hopes to ease social restrictions this week after controlling the fast-spreading cluster.

NSW, Australia's most populous state, recorded no local cases of coronavirus infection for ten days after recording a low single-digit daily case count in early January. Victoria State, which has hosted the Australian Open tennis tournament for three weeks, has not recorded any local cases of COVID-19.

Meanwhile, other states and regions in Australia are mostly COVID-free, some of which have been pandemic-free months. They will report the daily number of cases on Wednesday evening. Even so, it is estimated that no one will report local cases of infection.

Australia's success in suppressing a small outbreak, with a total of 22,000 local cases of COVID-19 since March 2020 with 909 deaths occurred as global coronavirus cases approach 100 million and the death rate exceeds two million.

An advertising campaign will be launched on Wednesday evening to encourage people to use the COVID-19 vaccine after Australian regulators this week approved the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine. The vaccination movement in Australia is expected to start in late February.

NSW requires the wearing of masks in indoor places, such as shopping centers and cinemas. The state has also imposed restrictions on public gatherings and temporarily banned the opening of dance floors, even nightclubs, in order to successfully curb the COVID-19 outbreak in Sydney's north coast and western suburbs.

The outbreak has caused states and other parts of Australia to close borders or restrict travel from NSW.

NSW government leader Gladys Berejiklien told Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) that she hopes to receive some medical information inputs at a later date, which will enable her to ease social restrictions this week.

"In New South Wales, our policy has always been not limiting or burdening our citizens a day longer than necessary. I hope to get confirmation from the input of information that will allow us to announce easing social restrictions this weekend," she said.

Despite its relative success in dealing with the pandemic, Australia's international borders are likely to remain closed to foreigners this year despite the possibility of exclusive travel arrangements called "travel bubbles" with neighboring countries in the South Pacific.

Australia has a one-way "travel bubble" with New Zealand. Under the arrangement, people arriving from New Zealand do not need to be quarantined.

However, the rules were suspended for 72 hours on Monday, January 24 after a new strain of the highly contagious coronavirus was discovered in New Zealand.