Australia will close itself from the world until mid-2022 under its zero Covid strategy despite fury from separated families and businesses

• Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison today defended plans to close country off from rest of the world until the middle of 2020
• Morrison said it is not safe to allow fully-vaccinated residents to travel overseas 
• Experts warned that the 'Fortress Australia' Covid-19 restrictions, which are focused on zero transmission, will create a 'hermit nation'

Australia will be shut off from the rest off the world until mid-2022 under the government's 'zero covid' strategy, despite fury from businesses and families who are being split by the country's strict border policies.

Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison today defended his plans to close the country off from the rest of the world until Summer next year, even as other highly-vaccinated countries such as the US and UK start to open their borders.

Mr Morrison said it is still not safe to allow fully-vaccinated residents to travel overseas, despite anger from separated families and businesses hit hard by the pandemic.

Australia is pursing a strict zero covid strategy which is focused on eliminating the virus by requiring all inbound travellers to quarantine for two weeks in a hotel and imposing strict lockdowns if cases make it to the community.

But critics say that the strategy is unsustainable for a developed democratic country in the long-term, and has stranded tens of thousands of Australians abroad.

They also point out that Australia's vaccination strategy is lagging behind much of the developed world, and the country relies on importing doses.

Australian commentators warn that the Prime Minister's 'Fortress Australia' Covid-19 restrictions will create a 'hermit nation'.

'I understand that everyone is keen to get back to a time we once knew,' the conservative leader in the face of growing calls for international borders to reopen.

'The reality is we're living this year in a pandemic that's worse than last year.'

Mr Morrison said any plans to relax border rules for vaccinated travellers could be implemented 'only when it is safe to do so'.

It comes after Austalian public health physician Nathan Grills and epidemiologist Tony Blakely in February warned that if 'zero Covid-19 is the endgame, then international travel is years away', adding that having no Covid-19 cases is a 'pipedream'. 

Australia plans to only reopen borders to the rest of the world from the middle of 2022 even as the federal budget unveiled last week hopes to fully vaccinate its near 26 million population by the end of this year.

Last March, Australia took the unprecedented step of closing its borders to foreign visitors and banning its globetrotting citizens from leaving.

That prompted the first population decline since World War I, stranded tens of thousands of Australian citizens overseas and separated hundreds of thousands of residents from family members. 

Australia's border closure, combined with snap lockdowns when a Covid-19 case emerges, swift contact tracing and public health compliance has ranked its control measures among the world's most effective. 

Infections total about 29,700, with 910 deaths and the country has almost no community transmission.

Yet the government is planning to keep their borders closed for another year, sparking a fierce debate among medics, industry leaders and academics.  

Australian Medical Association president Omar Khorshid on Tuesday warned: 'Australia cannot keep its international borders closed indefinitely.'

He called for improved quarantine facilities and vaccination efforts to permit borders to slowly open. 

'At some point, it will not be possible to justify the maintenance of border closures given their impact on lives and livelihoods,' he said.

A University of Sydney task force examining how Australia can safely reopen this week went further, warning the country 'cannot continue to lock itself off from the world as a hermit nation indefinitely'.

Panel member Professor Marc Stears said the initial snap measures to keep the pandemic at bay were understandable.

'You have to remember there really was terror,' he said. 'At the start of the pandemic the Australian public were inundated with images from Italy and New York.'

'There were strong demands for strong action, so the government took the decision to close the border. I don't think anyone really knew how effective a policy that would turn out to be.'

But, Stears said, as much of the world tentatively reopens, the costs of isolation are mounting.

'Not only have you got immediate economic and social costs, but you have the character of the country in question here. There is a fork in the road moment for openness versus closedness.' 

The economic impact of border closures has been blunted by massive stimulus spending, but a growing number of business leaders from hard-hit industries are also speaking out.

Virgin Australia CEO Jayne Hrdlicka led the charge on Monday, arguing Australia needs to accept that Covid-19 will not be eradicated and borders should gradually reopen.  

'We can't keep (COVID-19) out forever... It will make us sick but won't put us into hospital. Some people may die but it will be way smaller than the flu,' Virgin Australia boss Jayne Hrdlicka was quoted as saying in Australian media. 

Mr Morrison called the comments 'somewhat insensitive', insisting he would maintain the tight border regime as long as necessary.

'I'm not going to take risks with Australians' lives,' he said.

Earlier this week, Mr Morrison insisted that any decisions they make will be guided by medical expertise.  

'All the way through we will be guided by the medical advice,' Mr Morrison said at a televised briefing. 'We will be guided by the economic advice.' 

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg had earlier told the Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) that the medical advice to keep the borders closed had 'served us very well through this crisis'. 

The border closures appear to have widespread public support. A recent Newspoll survey showed 73 per cent of Australians want travel banned until at least mid-2022. 

Leaders in Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia who made a virtue of banning travellers from other Australian states in response to outbreaks, have won re-election at a canter.

Slowly, officials are starting to link reopening borders to vaccine targets.

So far only three million doses have been delivered in a country of 25 million people.

The premier of Australia's most populous state New South Wales on Tuesday indicated a target of around 80 per cent of adults fully vaccinated before considering quarantine-free entry.

'I don't want us to be closed off from the world longer than we need to,' said premier Gladys Berejiklian. 

Australia closed its international borders in March 2020, mostly to non-citizens and permanent residents, helping keep its COVID-19 numbers relatively low at just under 30,000 cases and 910 deaths.

Though the national immunisation drive missed its initial dosage targets, officials have ramped up the vaccination programme administering one million doses in the last 17 days.

So far, more than 3.1 million total vaccine shots have been administered, far short of the 4 million pledged by the end of March.        

On Saturday, the first repatriation flight from New Delhi following Australia's controversial ban on travel from India arrived half-empty in the northern city of Darwin, as many who had planned to travel were denied boarding after testing positive for the virus.

Morrison defended the testing requirements.

'I have seen the suggestions from others who seem to think that we can put people who have tested COVID-positive on planes and bring them into Australia,' he told reporters.

'That just doesn't make any sense.' 

In February, public health physician Nathan Grills and epidemiologist Tony Blakely from Australia's University of Melbourne warned that the country must shift to 'harm minimisation approach' if it is to reopen borders.  

'If zero Covid-19 is this endgame, then international travel is years away,' Mr Grills and Mr Blakely wrote in the Australian Financial Review. 

'The vaccine could help achieve eradication, but zero Covid-19 remains a pipe dream in the medium term. It's dependent on numerous external variables, mostly outside our control, including viral mutation and co-operation between 195 countries.'    

'We need to balance use of the most effective vaccines with "getting on with it,"' Grills and Blakely wrote.