After 100 weeks – Australia opens

It is estimated that the shutdown has cost businesses the equivalent of 42 billion Swedish kronor per month SBS News.

– Pack your bags. Don’t forget to bring your money, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said before the opening, because you will find many places to spend it.

Most reunion

However, at first, only tourists get on board. Countless stories of couples, families who have separated, and grandparents who haven’t met their grandchildren in two years as a result of Australia’s strict entry rules – which gave rise to the nickname ‘Castle Australia’ – Fort Australia.

Nearly half of Australia’s population has at least one foreign-born parent, local media reported, and Sydney’s airport was filled on Monday with darlings when the first planes arrived.

“I can’t describe how much it means to hug my daughter again after so long,” says Cindy Moss from the US, who is here to meet her daughter, according to Sydney Morning Herald.

Australia is one of the countries in the world with the strictest entry rules during the pandemic. For a long time it was difficult for Australians stranded abroad to return home and only in December the borders were opened, for example, to people with work and student visas.

She won’t be at the airport for Danny Allen, 38, despite the landing of her fiancé, Olexis Santiago Diaz, 41.

The two met in Cuba in 2019 when she was on vacation in the country and he was working as a mentor.

– We had an online relationship, which worked out well. She says we are now engaged.

They planned to meet on neutral territory – in Mexico the following year. But then an epidemic struck. Allen was not allowed to leave Australia. Santiago Diaz was not allowed to attend.

TT: How did it feel to be separated from each other?

– I think in a way that brought us closer to each other. We’ve had these tough conversations — if we want to start a family, what does he want to do here, she says.

The visa process was expensive and long, and dismissal was difficult.

– When he was forty, I bought him a balloon and a cake, but there was not much I could do. And when his father passed away, it was hard, because I couldn’t be there and hug him, says Danny Allen.

She is somewhat divided over Australia’s approach to the pandemic. She was in favor of the closure initially, when the borders were closed in March 2020. But at the same time she feels that not all those affected are taken into account.

– It was somewhat impersonal and heartless, and the human factor was not taken into account, she says.

The reason there was no Baki reunion at the airport is because Olexis Santiago Diaz was vaccinated with four doses of the Cuban vaccine Abdallah, which Australia has not recognized.

Therefore, he is forced to quarantine for seven days, before the two can meet.

The wedding will take place on April 11, three years after they first met in Cuba. But first, as I said, the reunion itself awaits – which is disturbed and nervous

– I’ll give him a long kiss and a long hug. Then we’ll be a little sad, just go home, eat homemade Australian food, fresh vegetables, maybe a cup of nice red, be together and talk.

Tourists are late

Most analysts believe it will be some time before pre-pandemic levels return with about 9.5 million visitors a year. Western Australia is waiting to open until March 3.

There is no sense that we will receive a wave of international visitors in the coming weeks. It is estimated that it could take two to three years to return to the levels of international visitors and spending we saw before the pandemic, Felicia Mariani of the Victoria State Tourism Board says to News letters.