COVID-19: Victoria scraps quarantine for international arrivals from 1 November 2021

If you are fully immunised and return 2 negative COVID-19 tests, then you are in! So now Victoria and New South Wales have gone all matchy-matchy with their international opening days. It’s also the day Victoria is estimating it will have reached 80% of adults double vaccinated.

The great unvaccinated

Those dirty potentially plague-ridden travellers will be allowed to enter but will need to do 14 days in hotel quarantine at their expense for their sins.

Testing

For the vaccinated – it’s a negative result of a test within 72 hours of departure, and another negative result from a test within 24 hours of arrival.

Flights brought forward

As with Sydney, expect international flights into and out of Melbourne to be brought forward. Qantas is already working on fast-tracking the start of Melbourne-London and -Los Angeles routes, currently set to start on 14 December. As a consequence, expect the Melbourne first-class lounge to re-open earlier too.

Other States

With Victoria and New South Wales open to international arrivals, you can expect other states to feel a little heat. Currently the recalcitrant, and largely virus-free states of Queensland and Western Australia have only committed to re-open their borders for quarantine free travel in early 2022

2PAXfly Takeout

I love digital, except when my phone dies, which happened to me on the last night of my recent visit to New Zealand

OK, I’m lifting my arms in defence, but does anyone else feel that all this seems a little fast compared to the previous caution around all this re-opening? – he said having just started organising a trip to Fiji for February?