The Australian Ban: The Australian ministry has said that Australian citizens travelling home from India could face fines and up to five years in jail. The Health Ministry has said that they made the ruling in respect to the fact of how many Indians were in quarantine right now. It is estimated that there are around 9,000 Australians present in India right now.
This will be the first time ever that Australians are criminalized for returning to their country. A doctor has said that the move by the government is disproportionate to the risk of people returning to Australian land.
Overnight statement from Greg Hunt, confirming a ban on travellers from India if they’ve been there within 14 days of their arrival in Australia. Failure to comply under the Biosecurity Act may incur penalties including five years jail, a $66k fine, or both. @abcnews #auspol pic.twitter.com/dq2oFdIXjB
— Chelsea Hetherington (@chelsea_hetho) April 30, 2021
USA’s restrictions: The U.S has suspended all incoming travel from India from May 4. The ban will be effective on everyone except U.S citizens, permanent residents, their spouses, humanitarian workers, journalists and students coming in for the fall semester. The ban has been said to be indefinite for now until lifted by President Biden.
Travel from India to the US will be restricted due to surge in COVID cases, White House says https://t.co/IERjoC5Pl0
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) April 30, 2021
Reasoning of the bans: The COVID-19 crisis in India has become increasingly difficult to handle, with exponential growth as cases have crossed 1 million in just the past week, bringing the total number of infections in the country to around 18 million. The death toll of 200,000 is expected to keep growing with no end in sight for the country of 1.3 billion, as the healthcare system continues to crumble and oxygen shortages hinder relief efforts. Over 400,000 cases were recorded in India just yesterday.
BREAKING: India reports over 400,000 new daily coronavirus cases, the first time the figure has been surpassed since the pandemic began.
— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) April 30, 2021