Australia Curbs Number of Returning Citizens, Reviews Quarantine
A shopping cart is left abandoned on a deserted street in the Docklands area of Melbourne, Australia, on Thursday, July 9, 2020. The six-week stay-at-home order that came into force across the Victoria state capital is set to devastate the city's restaurants, cafes, beauty spas and small retailers, which were just taking their first tentative steps back to business-as-usual. Melbourne's travails also provide a cautionary tale for other big, service economy-driven cities such as London, that are reopening pubs and restaurants in a bid to jump-start their crippled economies.
, Bloomberg
Edward Johnson, Bloomberg News
(Bloomberg) -- Australia will halve the number of citizens who can return home at any one time to relieve pressure on its system of quarantining arrivals, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Friday.
Morrison told reporters the quarantine system would also be reviewed.
More than 70,000 Australian citizens and permanent residents have undertaken 14-days of mandatory isolation at government-leased hotels since the crisis began and the policy has helped contain the spread of the virus. But the system is creaking, particularly as flights are rerouted due to an outbreak in Melbourne, placing pressure on other parts of the country.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.