National Cabinet: Xmas reopening stays on track despite Omicron variant

National Cabinet has decided there will be no change to Christmas reopening plans, despite baseless claims by the Queensland Premier that the Omicron variant is more serious than Delta.

Christmas holiday plans within Australia are not under threat from the Omicron variant for now, after state and territory leaders agreed to stick to the national road map out of Covid-19.

National cabinet, during an emergency meeting on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the latest strain, agreed there would be no change to current reopening schedules — including Queensland’s plan to reopen its interstate borders once 80 per cent of the adult population was fully vaccinated.

“National Cabinet agreed that the Commonwealth and state and territory governments will continue to pursue a suppression strategy, noting the objective is to limit the rate of Omicron incursions into Australia, rather than eliminate it at the border,” the Prime Minister’s office noted in a statement.

There are six confirmed cases of Omicron in Australia, with New South Wales health authorities confirming on Tuesday that one infectious person had been out in the community on the Central Coast.

The meeting, understood to have been “reasonably optimistic”, included a briefing from chief medical officer Professor Paul Kelly on how there was still no data showing the Omicron variant was worse than Delta or made vaccines less effective.

State and territory leaders were also handed “commercial-in-confidence” airline booking data which revealed hundreds of thousands of Australians had already locked in plans to fly over the Christmas period to Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania in particular.

National cabinet’s status quo decision not to change interstate reopening plans for now comes after Prime Minister Scott Morrison indicated he would be telling premiers to hold their nerve and “not get spooked” by the Omicron strain.

“We need to make calm decisions, not get spooked by this,” he said.

“I can assure you that the Commonwealth is not.”

But just minutes prior, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in state parliament claimed “countries closing their borders” indicated Omicron was “far more serious than Delta” — despite there being no data to support the claim either way.