Mwenenzi

A long way from the truth. "2024" is just a click bait headline by 1 person taking a report by bean counters out of context (would not call that person a journalist). You got sucked in.

nancypants

If you’re prepared to tolerate the expense (time and money) of quarantine, and depending on the price delta, I personally would go for it but with an airline perhaps more likely to be operating- Qatar is problematic at present and I confess to having no idea what the HKG transit situation is like, but what about JAL? Even in PE?

relying on BA leaves you with 2 problems instead of 1

Dave Noble

All of which would depend on having appropriate citizenship or visa holder to be eligible to enter

David_Doyle

My reading from your responses is that you are an Australian citizen, so I am guessing that whatever happens you & family would likely be prioritised anyway ahead of general tourists?

My OH (Australian) is very keen to go back and is booked for 17th December with me booked to join on the 22nd December. Whether we will get in is at this stage still a complete lottery as regards to what happens in UK/Europe/Australia this year. My OH's parents are both in mid-70's are have just been vaccinated.

I'd like to keep optimistic about likelihood of Australia relaxing some restrictions especially if it may be possible for family to quarantine at home, however the expansion of the purpose built facilities indicate that isolated quarantine will be in place for a considerable time to come. Even a reduction in the quarantine period from 14 days to say 7 days (with testing before travel, during quarantine and after perhaps) would be a big improvement though.

Fingers crossed.....

BrianDromey

While it does seem far away, it would seem like a plausible worst case scenario. Remember lockdown in the UK started off as a two-week, maybe a month at most. Here we are over a year down the line and loosing a second summer season. While the roll-out of vaccines has been good in the US and the UK, the remainder of the world lags somewhat behind in rates. There are concerns about the risk/benefit of at least one vaccine, possibly others. This is further slowing the roll-out in many countries. So the tail end of 2022 for opening up to start is realistic, its likely that they would go from hotel quarantine to home quarantine and testing, rather than a full big-bang?. I haven't been following the Australian domestic situation, but is there any great clamour to allow travel? With NZ and OZ in a travel bubble there is an entire continent to explore - although that is of limited use to those with family in Asia, the US or Europe.
The truth is that vaccine trials were not powered for transmission or even moderate illness, the trials are powered for hospitalisation and death. We don't know how effective the vaccines are in reducing community transmission. You can argue that even moderate illness does not matter if people don't end up in hospital or dying. But the vaccines have not been shown to be effective just yet - the data will follow in time from the UK and US.

Grace B

I'm not sure I would want to travel if "moderate" illness was in prospect, but I think most people living in Australia (where I am at the moment) would prefer to be virus free than travel.

You just have to look at the results of the recent WA election to see that.

davistev

Agreed. It would be tantamount to political suicide for any party to push for open borders, open business, freedom, liberty and so on. It is going to be a hard sell to change the "story line" right now. The middle of the road may just have to be better and more options for return travellers to come back to Australia. One year in and the powers to be are still trying to figure out how to override state government powers under federal laws. Australia does not have one federal voice, state governments have been calling the shots so far much to the chagrin of Scomo.

Cathay1101

I'm hoping this is the case, but it leaves me in a precarious situation as my partner is an EU citizen and we're not married but have been together for years - how I'm supposed to get her into the country as well I honestly don't know.

I'm afraid I'm only becoming more pessimistic - as others here have raised, COVID has been made out to be the Black Death in Australia, and developing a public tolerance for some community transmission is going to be a tall order (although they'll have to do it somehow, eventually), and I don't see that happening anytime soon, I'm afraid. A little less back-slapping, a little more vaccination please.

Still, booked the flights with car hire deposit as others here suggested (thank you kindly!) and will use the voucher for some sun elsewhere should the borders remain shut.

Dave Noble

I wouldn't hold my breath on the borders openimg soon; from https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fede...13-p57ixi.html

YYZ1313

Israel has seen a 97% drop in infection rates now that their entire population has been vaccinated. So it does seem like the vaccine reduces transmission and not only reduces the severity of symptoms. I think once more countries have fully vaccinated their population and we see similar scenarios, more and more countries will want to open up. Covid is here to stay and we will need to live with it.

Cathay1101

Sadly this most logical of observations appears to be lost on our esteemed Health Minister... Hopefully, as you say, once the numbers start tumbling elsewhere he might bite the bullet.

That being said, my recent phone call with my parents provided the latest reason for delay - we don't know how long the vaccines will provide immunity for...! Any excuse to keep the country locked up.

dddc

I'd like to know where, if at all, non "stranded" Australian expats fit into this. We're not technically stranded as we have the right visas or passports to work abroad, a job and a home. I don't think we fit into the 36,000 registered in the SMH article. But we'd make up a fair chunk of the numbers going into and out of Australia each year visiting family. I last went in Oct 19 and had optimistically booked J with my BAPP voucher for last Feb via the BA Avios sale. I hadn't managed to get seats on BA since 2002. But the next day, some MP made a statement that Australia was unlikely to open until Oct 21. I cancelled my ticket within the cooling off period as I didn't want to have a £1K voucher (for taxes etc) floating about to take a holiday to somewhere I don't want to.

Ideally when borders open the stranded 36,000 should have priority to return. After that, I would like some priority for expats wanting to see family and friends. Like many, I have elderly relatives including my Dad that's been hospitalised twice in this period. I've always accepted that the distance meant at some point I'd have to make that extra long trip home for a very sad reason. I never thought I'd be prevented from doing it. I do, however, support the international border restrictions and understand that that is far smaller price for a country to pay than that elsewhere. I laughed when Brisbane had a couple of 3 day lockdowns while I was in the middle of our second 4 month one. Perhaps the UK's great vaccine rollout thanks to the NHS will allow Australia and the UK to form a bubble for direct flights LHR-PER? I don't particularly like the B787 in Y - far too narrow for long haul compared to the A350, but would endure it to get home. I'd probably have a better chance of winning the lottery than getting J seats on points.

I have 3 possible trips planned for 2022 to Australia. I hope I can make one without needing to quarantine for 2 weeks in Australia - not unless my boss lets me work from the hotel for those 2 weeks!

dddc

That's why some countries are buying more doses than they currently need so they can start annual booster shots. There are discussions I've seen where people will get them yearly with the standard flu shoots - except we will have to massively step up where they will be available from.

tgsh2006

Let's not forget there is a federal election due in Australia by this time next year. Don't under estimate the politics of this.

YYZ1313

Indeed. COVID has been mostly a political issue from the start. Sadly. The sooner people realize we need to live with it and probably get a booster vaccine each year, the better we will be.