Seven-day home quarantine for NSW international arrivals

New South Wales will introduce a home quarantine “pilot” for international arrivals as part of a plan to begin opening international borders even as parts of the state returned to lockdown.The pilot, which will be run as a partnership between the NSW government and the commonwealth, will trial a seven-day home quarantine program for about 175 fully vaccinated people.

The NSW minister for jobs and tourism , Stuart Ayres, said the state’s high vaccination rates meant the government could announce the “next step” in the reopening strategy. “It’s about ensuring we conduct the trial properly [and] build the base of evidence so we can remove our hotel quarantine system for the majority of people who are coming into Australia.”

NSW minister for jobs and tourism Stuart Ayres

Trial participants will be broken across two groups and will include Qantas aircrew and staff members. Ayres told reporters participants will be chosen by NSW police and NSW Health based on a “risk assessment framework”.

“We want to be able to test across different cohorts. Families, singles, older people, younger people, people in different forms of work.

“This is a trial and about testing different types of accommodation, apartments and homes. We want to ensure we get the spread right. This isn’t about prioritising individuals or people who have been overseas.”

Ayres confirmed that only double vaccinated arrivals would be able to take advantage of the program when it was launched and that the trial would run only with fully vaccinated arrivals. “We can’t stay closed forever,” he said, “We’ve got to be able to learn what happens when we put people into home-based quarantine. Australia must reopen. We must get rid of lockdowns, we must re-engage with the world.”

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, welcomed the announcement, saying the trial was the next step in the plan to “safely reopen, and to stay safely open”.