Australian border closures could work for Britain. Here’s why

Australia has been a rare success story during the pandemic. There have been around 29,000 cases of Covid, 908 of which have proved fatal. There are currently just 125 active cases in the entire country, a mere 25 of which have required hospitalisation. For a population of 25 million, this is a vastly different experience to that of Covid-beleaguered Europe and North America. No wonder the British government is considering whether it might be time to copy Australia’s approach, to help save an economy and society battered to a degree Australians can scarcely comprehend.

Australia benefits from being a remote island continent with no international land borders. When it became clear that Wuhan was the epicentre of a new, fast-spreading virus, Australia quickly self-isolated. First, flights from China were halted, to howls of outrage from the Beijing government. But by late March last year, prime minister Scott Morrison had extended travel bans to all non-residents and non-citizens.