Australia may be keeping its borders closed to holidaymakers until at least 2022, even with the rolling out of Covid vaccines.
The country's finance minister Simon Birmingham told local media that factors such as Covid variants and the speed of vaccine rollouts, Australians "won't be seeing borders flung open at the start of next year".
According to news.com.au, Mr Birmingham said that borders were unlikely to reopen sooner "given uncertainties that exist not just in the speed of the vaccine rollout but also the extent of its effectiveness to different variants of COVID, the duration of its longevity and effectiveness".
It's not the first time that an Australian minister has said that a 2021 restart for international travel was unlikely for Australia.
Back in January Dr Brendan Murphy, the country's Health Department Secretary, was asked by local media if he thought that the country's international borders would re-open this year, to which he said the answer was "probably no".
At the time he said that he expected "that we'll go most of this year with still substantial border restrictions".
Meanwhile, Australia's national airline, Qantas, had previously revealed plans to restart international flights from October 2021, although it's not yet confirmed if this remains the case.
He told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation : "I think that we'll go most of this year with still substantial border restrictions, even if we have a lot of the population vaccinated. We don't know whether that will prevent transmission of the virus."
Currently Australia has closed its borders to most travellers, with some exemptions such as Australian citizens returning home or travellers who have a "compassionate or compelling reason" to enter the country. It has also opened a travel bubble with New Zealand.
Anyone arriving into the country will need to show proof of a negative Covid-19 test result, and all international arrivals must undertake a mandatory 14-day quarantine in one of the designated facilities - including quarantine hotels.
You can find out more in the Foreign Office's Australia travel advice.
What do you think about Australia possibly keeping its borders closed through to 2022? Let us know in the comments below.
