COVID-19: Victoria scraps quarantine for international arrivals from 1 November 2021

If you are fully immunised and return 2 negative COVID-19 tests, then you are in! So now Victoria and New South Wales have gone all matchy-matchy with their international opening days. It’s also the day Victoria is estimating it will have reached 80% of adults double vaccinated.

The great unvaccinated

Those dirty potentially plague-ridden travellers will be allowed to enter but will need to do 14 days in hotel quarantine at their expense for their sins.

Testing

For the vaccinated – it’s a negative result of a test within 72 hours of departure, and another negative result from a test within 24 hours of arrival.

Flights brought forward

As with Sydney, expect international flights into and out of Melbourne to be brought forward. Qantas is already working on fast-tracking the start of Melbourne-London and -Los Angeles routes, currently set to start on 14 December. As a consequence, expect the Melbourne first-class lounge to re-open earlier too.

Other States

With Victoria and New South Wales open to international arrivals, you can expect other states to feel a little heat. Currently the recalcitrant, and largely virus-free states of Queensland and Western Australia have only committed to re-open their borders for quarantine free travel in early 2022

2PAXfly Takeout

This is another timely reminder to wear your seatbelt when seated. Holding you close to your seat will protect you from the sort of injuries sustained on this flight, when unsecured passengers flew to the ceiling of the aircraft, and then came crashing down once the ‘drop’ ceased.

The hope will be that this is an anomaly – a ‘freak accident’ in casual parlance. If it is a systemic error either mechanical or electronic, then this is a larger concern for the airlines that fly Boeing Dreamliner 787 aircraft. Let’s hope it isn’t. If it is, it will pile on the woes to Boeing’s existing stack.

OK, I’m lifting my arms in defence, but does anyone else feel that all this seems a little fast compared to the previous caution around all this re-opening? – he said having just started organising a trip to Fiji for February?