England’s COVID-19 restrictions to end, Australia welcomes back tourists

Residents of England and Australia have gotten some welcome relief from COVID-19 restrictions. On Monday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced “we will remove all remaining domestic restrictions in law” regarding COVID-19. The announcement applies only to England proper, but that still covers over 80% of the United Kingdom population.

“When the pandemic began, we had little knowledge of this virus and none about the vaccines and the treatments we have today. So there was no option but to use government regulations to protect our NHS and save lives,” Prime Minister Johnson said Monday. “But those restrictions on our liberties have brought grave costs to our economy, our society and the chances of our children.”

Among the changes in England taking effect:

• No more requirement to self-isolate/test following a positive test or close contact
  • Citizens will still be advised to stay home, but will not receive extra financial support
• Free PCR tests available only to older people and the immune-compromised
• No more free rapid tests for the general public

“We should be proud that the U.K. established the biggest testing program per person of any large country in the world, but its budget in the last financial year was bigger than that of the Home Office and…the testing program cost two billion pounds just last month alone,” Johnson said. “So we must scale back and prioritize our resources for the most vulnerable.”

As residents in England celebrate rolling back COVID-19 restrictions, some made their way to Australia Monday. The country opened up to international tourists and business travelers for the first time since the pandemic began.

“It’s just beautiful, thank you for having me back, we are just so grateful, so, so grateful,” British traveler Sue Witton said, shortly after being reunited with her only son for the first time in nearly two years. “724 [days] apart and he’s my only son, and I’m alone, so this means the world to me.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said 1.2 million people had visas to enter Australia with 56 international flights due to touch down in the first 24 hours of the border reopening. Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said all travelers’ vaccination status would be checked before they arrived to avoid a repeat of tennis star Novak Djokovic’s visa debacle. Meanwhile Phillipa Harrison, the managing director of Tourism Australia, said she expected tourist numbers would take two years to rebound to pre-pandemic levels.