Canberra, 22 Nov : , The Australian government has welcomed the first group of international students to Australia’s travel bubble. Reports Xinhua say that travellers who have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and are departing from Singapore may enter Australia unassisted.
This is the first entry since March 2020 when the pandemic began.
According to Catriona Jackson (chief executive at Universities Australia), two international student flights landed in Sydney on Sunday.
This was the first group of international students that has arrived in Australia since November 2020.
Another 500 students will join the initial batch in December.
Jackson stated that universities had worked with health and government authorities over 18 months to plan for safe return of international friends.He also said that approximately 130,000 students are still living outside Australia.
We are confident today’s arrivals will be the beginning of next semester at a large scale.
The country’s tight border closing as a response to the pandemic crippled Australia’s international education sector.
The universities lost 4.9% of their revenues in 2020, which was an estimate at A$1.8billion ($1.3billion).17,000 job losses were also caused by this.
Australia had registered 1,948 deaths and 199,659 Covid-19 cases as of Monday morning.
According to the Department of Health, 91.5 percent of Australians over 16 have had one dose of vaccine and 85.1 percent were inoculated fully against the virus.
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