Australia COVID LIVE updates: Tougher lockdown laws in NSW as vaccine passport plans emerge

More Melburnians will be forced into 14 day quarantine after an apartment building in Melbourne’s inner east was listed as an COVID-19 exposure site for 12 full days.

The Bosisto Street Residential Apartment Complex in Richmond, near the corner of major Melbourne thoroughfare Bridge Road, was listed as a potential exposure site across after a case attended the building.

The complex is listed as a tier-2 exposure site between 12am on August 2 and 11.59pm on Friday August 13, meaning anyone who visited the building during those 12 days must isolate immediately and get tested.

Some residents at the complex will be considered tier-1 contacts and as a result will need to isolate for 14 days, according to the Victorian health department.

Apartment buildings in West Melbourne and the Melbourne CBD have already been listed as exposure sites during the current COVID-19 outbreak, with residents either needing to isolate for two weeks or get tested and isolated until they receive a negative result.

A number of stores in Broadmeadows Central, Coles supermarkets in Glenroy and at the Richmond Icon building, and Pickford’s Pharmacy in Carlton were also listed as tier-2 sites late last night.
There are now more than 457 exposure sites listed by the Victorian Department of Health.

Australia’s hard border has raised eyebrows internationally even as it has worked at keeping case numbers (and deaths) remarkably low compared to most of the world. In line with expert modelling, the federal government has tied Australia’s phased reopening plan to vaccination targets. That inoculation campaign, having lagged behind most of the developed world, is now speeding up but it’s not likely to meet the plan’s thresholds until the end of the year.

Some experts despair at what the “Fortress Australia” mentality is doing to the country in the meantime while others question the legality of travel bans for citizens. Meanwhile, with cases low in many Asian and Pacific nations, a number of epidemiologists say Australia could extend its travel bubble beyond New Zealand sooner than planned.

So, what is Australia’s border policy, how does it compare to the rest of the world, and what does the law say about shutting citizens out (and in)?

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