Travel news latest: Australia to keep borders closed to Britons for the foreseeable future

Australia looks set to keep its borders closed to British visitors for the foreseeable future, the country’s prime minister has suggested.

Speaking in Cornwall at the G7 summit, Scott Morrison said he “[will] continue to take an Australian path on [border restrictions] which protects the lives and livelihoods and learn from the experiences of other countries”, adding that travel should only resume “when the medical advice suggests that we should”.

Australia, despite being on the UK’s green list, has kept its borders closed to British arrivals and has one of the tightest entry restrictions in the world. The country currently has fewer than 150 active cases but is seen to be pursuing a “zero Covid” strategy and set to keep its borders closed to the majority of international visitors until 2022.

Mr Morrison said: “We are already seeing here in the UK that the high level of vaccination is preventing those hospitalisations, which is its purpose and that’s welcome, but we’re also seeing very high numbers of cases and at this stage of the pandemic, it is not clear where it goes next.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is due to announce a delay to the UK’s lockdown easing today, with a wider resumption of international travel now unlikely until the end of July.

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8:29AM

Boris Johnson to urge public to accept ‘one last heave’ to freedom

Boris Johnson is set to urge the public to accept “one last heave” to freedom as he delays the final step of lockdown reopening.

On Sunday night the Prime Minister was finalising his plan to push back the June 21 reopening in England by up to four weeks owing to a surge in Covid cases. Earlier in the day he had refused to rule out further delays in the future.

It means rules ordering the wearing of face masks, limiting groups to six people indoors and 30 outdoors, and keeping nightclubs shut are set to remain in place.

The cap on weddings being attended by only 30 people is expected to be relaxed, but the exact details of what new rules would replace it were still being debated in Government on Sunday night.

Mr Johnson’s message to the nation at a Downing Street press conference on Monday evening is expected to be that sticking to the rules now is worth it to avoid a future lockdown.

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8:20AM