South Korea added to coronavirus travel ban while Italy arrivals face extreme screening
Australia has slapped another coronavirus travel ban on a country while a popular European destination has escaped the same fate.
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AUSTRALIA’S third coronavirus travel ban has been slapped on South Korea, while travellers coming in from Italy will undergo extreme screening to ensure they are not carrying the deadly disease.
It comes as Prime Minister Scott Morrison urged Australians to remain calm and said every citizen had a role to play in combating COVID-19’s spread.
There have now been 53 Australians test positive to the disease, and two die, while the global death toll is more than 3250 people.
Mr Morrison also said the disease’s financial impact was likely to be “equal to that of … the global financial crisis”.
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Non-Australians will be barred from entering Australia if coming from South Korea from 9pm tonight, joining Iran and China with a travel ban intended to slow the spread of the virus.
Travellers coming from Italy will faced enhanced screen measures even from before arrival.
These include being asked being asked mandatory questions at airport check in, with anyone who fails being denied permission to board.
Anyone who gets sick on board the plane will be met by biosecurity on arrival. All travellers coming from Italy will be barred from using Smart Gates and will be asked further questions, have their temperature checked and undergo further associated health checks.
Mr Morrison said people travelling from Korea would have been subject to the enhance screening, instead of a travel ban, but the Australian Border Force simply don’t have the resources.
“We have about five times, just over that, the number of people coming from Korea then we do having come from Italy,” he said.
“The other issue is with Italy, it more broadly feeds into the issue of Europe and travel from
Europe more broadly and we will be watching closely those developments over the days and weeks ahead.”
Australian residents returning from Korea will be allowed into the country but will be asked to self isolate for 14 days from when they return.
Mr Morrison also urged Australians to remain calm and said they had a role to play in helping to contain the disease’s spread.
“I say to all Australians, you can help too. You can help by keeping, going about your business, you can help by going about and supporting those who are undergoing self isolation,” he said.
Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said it was important for returned travellers who get sick to isolate and seek medical attention, but other than that Australians should be about their normal lives.
“We need to remember the most important thing any returned traveller from any part of the world where there’s a COVID-19 outbreak who develop symptoms should isolate and seek medical attention,” he said.
“That is the most important way we can deal with and stop spread in Australia.
“At the moment, there is no reason to put a mask on when you are walking around the shops, there is no reason to stop going to football matches or community activities, there is no reason to delude the shelves of lavatory paper in the supermarkets.”