France, US detect cases of Indian COVID variant, US bans most travel from India
Australian residents and citizens who have been in India within 14 days of the date they plan to return home will be banned from entering Australia as of Monday and those who disobey will face fines and jail, government officials said.
The temporary emergency determination, issued late on Friday, is the first time Australia has made it a criminal offence for its citizens to return home.
The move is part of strict measures to stop travellers to Australia from the world’s second most populous nation as it contends with a surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths.
The restrictions come into effect from May 3 and breaching the ban risks civil penalties and up to five years imprisonment, Health Minister Greg Hunt said in a statement.
“The government does not make these decisions lightly,” Hunt said.” However, it is critical the integrity of the Australian public health and quarantine systems is protected and the number of COVID-19 cases in quarantine facilities is reduced to a manageable level.”
The government will reconsider the restrictions on May 15.
Neela Janakiramanan, an Australian surgeon with family in India said the decision to “criminalise” Australians returning from India was disproportionate and overly punitive.
“Indian-Australians are seeing this as a racist policy because we are being treated different than people from other countries who have had similar waves of infection like the U.S., the UK and Europe. It is very hard to feel anything other than targeted as an ethnic group.”
A spokesman for the Health Minister “deeply” rejected the view that stopping arrivals from India temporarily was a biased measure, saying it was a difficult but necessary decision that applied “to all people no matter their nationality, race or religion.”
Human rights groups voiced indignation at the ban, suggesting the government’s focus should be on improving its quarantine system, not on punishment.
“This is an outrageous response. Australians have a right of return to their own country,” Human Rights Watch’s Australia director, Elaine Pearson said in a statement.
“The government should be looking for ways to safely quarantine Australians returning from India, instead of focusing their efforts on prison sentences and harsh punishments.”
Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday imposed new travel restrictions on India in light of the COVID-19 epidemic, barring most non-U.S. citizens from entering the United States.
The new restrictions, which take effect on Tuesday, May 4 at 12:01 am ET (0401 GMT), are on the advice of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and were imposed because “the magnitude and scope of the COVID-19 pandemic” in India was “surging,” the White House said.
Biden on Friday signed a proclamation implementing the restrictions, which were first reported by Reuters.
The proclamation said India “accounts for over one-third of new global cases” and added that “proactive measures are required to protect the nation’s public health from travelers entering the United States” from India.
In January, Biden issued a similar ban on most non-U.S. citizens entering the country who have recently been in South Africa. He also reimposed an entry ban on nearly all non-U.S. travelers who have been in Brazil, the United Kingdom, Ireland and 26 countries in Europe that allow travel across open borders. China and Iran are also both covered by the policy.
The policy means most non-U.S. citizens who have been in one of the stated countries within the last 14 days are not eligible to travel to the United States. Permanent U.S. residents and family members and some other non-U.S. citizens, such as students, are exempted.
On the other hand, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services announced Friday that the state has confirmed the first case of the India variant of COVID-19 B1.617, which has been dubbed a “double-mutant” variant.
France also detected its first cases of contamination with the B.1.617 variant of the novel coronavirus, currently very present in India, the country’s Health Ministry said in a statement late on Thursday.
A first case, involving a woman who travelled to India and is living in southwestern France, was confirmed on Thursday, the ministry said. Two other people who travelled to India were infected with the so-called Indian variant in southeastern France, the ministry said.