Morrison: Decisive border closure against China lets Australians dodge a bullet

Australian Prime Minister Morrison at a news conference in Sydney on April 19, 2021. (Jenny Evans/Getty Images)

Australia and New Zealand began implementing an open border system for segregation-free travel on Monday (19). Australian Prime Minister Morrison said in a speech on the 19th that Australia’s success in controlling the Communist virus outbreak must be attributed to the timely and decisive decision to close the border to China.

The Central News Agency quoted news.com.au as reporting today (20) that Scott Morrison spoke at the Business Council of Australia last night about Australia’s experience and outlook in fighting the epidemic.

Morrison noted that Australia’s success in containing the outbreak of the Chinese Communist Viral Disease (COVID-19, Wuhan pneumonia), avoiding the worst public health crisis of the day and avoiding an economic downturn like other countries, was due to Australia’s timely border closure to China.

Morrison noted that when the outbreak hit, the Australian federal government had just ended an 11-year deficit period, so Australia had sufficient financial resources to deal with the outbreak.

On February 1, 2020, Australia began a ban on foreign travelers from China, along with a 14-day quarantine for Australian residents and citizens from China; on February 27, Morrison declared a national outbreak, while the World Health Organization (WHO) waited until March 12 to declare a global outbreak.

In his speech last night, Morrison stressed that the outbreak in Australia would have been much worse if the border had not been closed to China in time. He admitted that the decision had angered China, but it was a decision that had to be made to allow Australians to escape.

Australia currently has 910 deaths from the outbreak; although the death toll is much lower than in other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries. But Morrison cautioned that the fight against the epidemic should not be taken lightly, as the death rate of confirmed patients in Australia is actually not low.