Questions about what decisions could be made in the future once more was known about the virus were “hypothetical”.
“I can’t put a 100 per cent guarantee on anything,” he said. “But we’re watching,and at this stage,there’s no ... evidence to support a change in position.”
Australia closed its borders overnight to non-Australians in nine southern African countries,while Victoria and New South Wales,which have enjoyed open borders for weeks,reimposed short forms of quarantine for international arrivals as a precaution.
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Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said preliminary advice was that there were no signs the Omicron variant was more dangerous in terms of serious illness or death. TheSouth African doctor who first alerted authorities to the new variant said the symptoms were unusual but mild.
Dr Aitken said fewer than 10 people who had recently arrived in Queensland from the nine countries of concern had been located in hotel quarantine.
He said the nationwide halt on non-resident international arrivals from Botswana,Eswatini,Lesotho,Malawi,Mozambique,Namibia,South Africa,The Seychelles or Zimbabwe was “the safe way to do things until we know more about the virus”.