Coronavirus: Students to test open border under ‘traffic-light’ plan

Foreign students may trial new system as Scott Morrison resists calls to nominate inoculation rate to trigger broader reopening.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has resisted calls to nominate an inoculation rate that would trigger the international border reopening. Picture: Adam Taylor/PMO

Foreign students could be used to trial a new “green light, red light” system on the international ­border, allowing in vaccinated ­arrivals who pose no health risk, as Scott Morrison resists calls to nominate an inoculation rate that would trigger a broader reopening to the world.

The Prime Minister told The Weekend Australian he would not risk the nation’s economic recovery and exposure to Covid-19 by rushing to reopen borders, revealing there was no magic number for vaccination rates “at this point” despite demands from business for more foreign workers to be ­allowed in to fill skills shortages.

“The jury is out on that and it will be a while, I think, before the epidemiologists can have greater clarity on that. We have to be ­patient for the evidence and the science,” Mr Morrison said.

Any gradual reopening, beginning with student pilot programs, would still include quarantine protocols for arrivals into Australia.

He said the government’s top priorities remained getting people “home”, addressing issues around students and tackling workforce challenges sparked by inter­national border closures.

To inform border decisions, Mr Morrison said the government would monitor new Covid-19 strains and variants in Britain and Europe over the next six months and the effectiveness of vaccines to “protect against serious illness in real time”, noting that hospitalisations in the UK were increasing.

Speaking on his return to Australia following an eight-day overseas trip, Mr Morrison said getting in place a system on the borders identifying vaccinated individuals was the key to setting up travel bubbles, first with Singapore ­before potentially expanding to Japan and South Korea.

But he said compatibility with recognition systems in use overseas was critical, with initial talks being held with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

“At this stage, all we’re doing is talking to Singapore and getting some compatible systems and we’ll take it from there – the rest of it is unknown,” Mr Morrison said.

“In Europe they have a system which works green light, red light. And the green light is if you’ve had it, so you have the antibodies, if you’ve had a PCR test within the relevant period or you’re vac­cinated. These things feed back into other databases to enable the border clearance.

“So if any spectrum of these technologies is possible, and that’s why I agreed with PM Lee that when we’re both ready then the systems will be able to work.”

Mr Morrison floated the idea of conducting early trials for a new recognition system on foreign students. “Doing it (with) students would be a good first run-around to prove up the system,” he said.

“It’s just sort of quite practical homework to have something ready in the event you got to that next point. But there was no indication of time frame, no indication of commitment to a time frame, just let’s get this thing working ­really well.”

UK citizens can currently travel internationally and return home based on a traffic light system. The strictest requirements are for those returning from a “red” zone country – they must stay in hotel quarantine for 10 days and return a negative Covid-19 test on day two and eight.

In the US, residents are permitted to travel overseas without quarantining for two weeks if they are fully vaccinated. If unvac­cinated, they must complete seven days of quarantine at home.

Australian National University infectious diseases expert Peter Collignon said at least 70 to 80 per cent of the Australian population should be vaccinated before there was “relatively free movement” and open international borders.

“Most believe 70 or 80 per cent (but) no country has achieved that,” Professor Collignon said. “We will have to wait until early next year to see what the effects of the US, Canada and Europe are.

“To make the consequences lower, we need to make sure 90 per cent of people over the age of 70 are vaccinated because that’s where the majority of deaths occur.”

University of NSW professor of epidemiology Mary-Louise McLaws said a minimum of 82 per cent of Australian adults needed to be inoculated before international borders opened.

She said the more infectious Delta Covid-19 variant was now the most common strain in the UK and increasingly in the US. “We need 150,000 to 155,000 injections per day to get us covered at that 82 per cent level if we want to open up the borders by the end of the year,” she said.

The speed of vaccine rollouts in Britain and US is directly linked with emergency settings sparked by soaring Covid-19 infection rates and deaths.

Mr Morrison said that what happened with the virus in Europe and the UK over the next six months would “give us a pretty good idea about new strains and variants” as well as the effectiveness of the vaccine.

Plans to set up two-way travel with Singapore, once it neutralises a Covid-19 outbreak, are being advanced, in a bid to make it Australia’s second bubble after New Zealand. Immigration, travel and health officials from both countries are working together on vaccine certificates, visa arrangements and prioritising Singaporean students returning to Australia as part of an “exercise pilot”.

If the Australia-Singapore travel bubble is a success, Mr Morrison said the government could then look at other countries, with both Japan and South Korea expressing interest.

“Singapore is really the workhorse test case to prove up the infrastructure and to do the things we need to do to enable it but the decisions to do it are not taken, not being timetabled, and will occur when they can,” he said.

Australian Industry Group chief Innes Willox said the sooner Australians could go overseas the better. “Federal and state governments need to work together and balance all the risks including health and the economy and aim to open our border as soon as safely possible and as soon as the vaccination is broadly available to everyone,” he said.

Business Council of Australia chief Jennifer Westacott said that, as more Australians were vaccinated, the nation could “build confidence by unwinding the patchwork of restrictions, planning to reopen our international borders and sectors of our economy including bringing back critical international students and skilled workers”.

After releasing commonwealth criteria for joint quarantine facilities with states and territories this month, Mr Morrison said he was looking at other options, in addition to Victoria, but would not entertain proposals that didn’t match federal guidelines.

It is widely expected that once international travel resumes, additional capacity to hotel quarantine will be required.