WA worker booster order as Mark McGowan battens down the hatches

WA Premier Mark McGowan has mandated booster vaccinations for around three-quarters of the state’s workforce and has further tightened border restrictions.

WA Premier Mark McGowan. Picture: Colin Murty

West Australian Premier Mark McGowan has mandated booster vaccinations for around three-quarters of the state’s workforce and has further tightened border restrictions with the rest of the country as the threat of the Omicron variant continues to build ahead of the state’s planned reopening to the world.

Workers across a host of industries – including healthcare, education, construction, hospitality and mining – will now all need to receive their booster jabs within one month of becoming eligible if they are to keep their jobs, under the toughest vaccination mandates in the country.

Travel restrictions for arrivals into Western Australia from Tasmania and the Northern Territory have also been made even tougher after they were upgraded from low to medium risk under the state’s controlled border system. The new rules will kick in from Sunday.

“As of Boxing Day we will have a hard border with the rest of Australia,” Mr McGowan said.

Arrivals from those two jurisdictions were already required to isolate for two weeks upon their arrival in Western Australia under the previous classification, but they will also now need to secure an exemption from authorities before they can enter the state.

Mr McGowan said he still remained committed to honouring his pledge from earlier this month to bring down border restrictions once and for all on February 5, but he warned that the plan could be abandoned in the event of an emergency. Omicron, he said, was a major cause for concern, with the next two weeks set to provide a much clearer picture of the severity of the latest variant.

Most of those infected with the virus in NSW are younger and do not experience the same severity as older patients but, with Omicron spreading rapidly across much of Australia, the number of older people infected by the virus is likely to grow and its severity should become more apparent.

Mr McGowan said Western Australia’s decision to delay the reopening of its borders, in contrast to the pre-Christmas reopening by the likes of Queensland and Tasmania, meant his state could learn from the experiences of the rest of Australia.

“The great thing about our position at this point in time is we can watch what happens in those states, we can watch how they cope, what they put in place, what works and what doesn’t, and we can calibrate our arrangements,” he said.

Western Australia’s vaccination mandates have helped the total number of West Australians aged over 12 who have received their first two vaccinations climb to more than 82 per cent, despite the state not having suffered any Covid outbreaks or major lockdowns for well over a year.

Only one person has died in Western Australia from a community-transmitted case of the virus to date.

The risks of Omicron creeping into Western Australia ahead of the lifting of the border were highlighted on Wednesday when authorities revealed a recently returned couple from Queensland had tested positive after arriving back in Perth.

The couple were quarantining at a home with four relatives, all of whom have so far tested negative.

At least 35 close contacts of the couple have also been identified to date, but 23 of those have so far tested negative and Mr McGowan said the health risk to the public was very low.