Coronavirus: WA border rules ease as app allows remote checking

WA’s border rules have been eased with arrivals from Victoria no longer having to quarantine in a hotel from Monday.

WA Premier Mark McGowan. Picture: Jackson Flindell

Western Australia’s border rules have been eased, with arrivals from Victoria no longer having to quarantine in a hotel from Monday and allowed to self-­isolate at a suitable home for two weeks.

WA Premier Mark McGowan said new entrants, who would still require an exemption, would be tested on day one and day 11 under the plan, which he said was aimed at easing the demand on hotels with the number of international arrivals requiring quarantine set to increase.

He also unveiled a new platform, dubbed the G2G Now App, to “complement the work of WA police” and allow them to check in on people remotely while in self-quarantine in what he argued was an “Australian-first”.

Restrictions for arrivals from NSW will also be eased, bringing the east coast state into line with the rules for other state and territories. While he said the announcements were an “important step forward” on the path to reopening with the east, Mr McGowan said he was still not ready to set a date for the dropping of border restrictions.

Qantas will monitor demand for flights into WA after the latest adjustment to restrictions. A minimal schedule of services is being operated into Perth from interstate by Qantas and Virgin Australia as part of the government-subsidised network.

WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson said the app announced by Mr McGowan, which is not compulsory, used facial recognition and mobile location data to pinpoint where people were in real time: “I should stress, police will still be checking on people and it won’t all be done virtually.”

The measures taken by Mr McGowan come after Queensland’s borders were opened to ACT residents on Friday after being shut for almost two months to prevent people from NSW or Victoria using Canberra to fly in without declaring they had been in a declared hotspot.

The Queensland border remains closed to Victorians and NSW residents, except for those living within certain border towns. Queensland residents who have been in declared virus hotspots can return to the state, but must quarantine for two weeks in a ­government-sanctioned hotel.

Annastacia Palaszczuk’s government in Queensland announced last week that from October 1, the “border zone” would be expanded to a further 11 NSW postcodes, allowing 152,000 residents there to apply for a pass to travel across into the state without needing to quarantine.

WA recorded no new cases of COVID-19 on Monday night, with infections from the carrier Patricia Oldendorff stable at 17.

Mr McGowan said his government’s first priority was to protect the health of West Australians, and those in hotel quarantine were subject to strict supervision.

Additional reporting: Charlie Peel, R obyn Ironside