Everything we know so far about Vaccine Passports in Australia
Since the news arrived that Australia could be starting the international travel before the end of the year, everyone is talking about vaccine passports.
So in this article, we are going to cover everything we know so far about these vaccination passports and how they might work in Australia.
What is a Vaccine Passport?
Vaccine passport is basically a proof that you have been vaccinated against COVID-19 with approved vaccinations.
You can carry around this vaccine passport with you and if required you can show it around to the places you might visit that could include your workplace, a restaurant, a gym, a bar or could be when catching a flight
From October onwards Australian government will be rolling out these vaccination passports in Australia.
It will be available both in a digital format and in a physical printed format as well.
Benefits of Vaccine Passport
- Traveling without restrictions: One of the benefit is traveling without much restrictions. At the moment if you are coming to Australia you need to do a 2 week hotel quarantine which obviously is done in order to control the spread of COVID-19. So those quarantine arrangements could change with vaccine passports as there might be an option for home quarantining instead of doing it in a hotel.
- Visiting local venues: If you have been issued a vaccine passport you could visit different places like pubs restaurants bars and obviously
- Work related travel: Vaccinated people will be able to travel around easily for work purposes.
Concerns of Vaccine Passport
- Discrimination: One of the biggest concern is regarding discrimination especially against the people who are not vaccinated yet. Unvaccinated people might feel that they are getting discriminated because they can’t visit some of these premises or businesses.
- Privacy: People feel that they will have to show these vaccine passport every place they visit that intrudes into their privacy
- Scams: Lots of scammers are obviously watching out this as an opportunity to make money and to scam people.
How will they work in Australia?
To understand how these vaccines passports might work in Australia, we will divide this section into 2 parts:
- For local travel and life in Australia
- For international travel
For local travel and life in Australia
Australia is considering the use of vaccine passports within Australia.
New south wales government will be the first in the country to trial the vaccination passports especially when visiting local venues like bars, restaurants and pubs.
The trial will run for a couple of weeks in October and if it’s successful more freedoms will be given to the people who are already vaccinated and could be rolled out to other parts of Australia.
For international Travel
At the moment Australian government is in talk with other countries to work out which vaccines will be recognised for international travel once they start opening up their borders.
Obviously, there are lots of vaccinations available at the moment against COVID-19 and some of these ones are already been recognised and approved for use in Australia.
There is no official update on which vaccines will be approved apart from the ones that are already been approved in Australia
The TGA has approved 3 vaccines for use in Australia:
- Pfizer
- AstraZeneca
- Moderna
Australia is also trialling a home quarantine system as well this is being trialled at the moment in South Australia and if successful, this could be implemented for local and international traveller in Australia.
There is a lot of talk about opening up their international borders and allowing some international travel with countries like UK, USA, Canada, Singapore, European countries and Fiji before the end of the year.
With vaccine passports, Australians could soon be able to travel overseas and Australians who are stuck overseas can come in larger numbers.
What does this means for international students?
Although the introduction of vaccine passports might be a great news for international travel especially for Australians but it obviously brings us hope that there is a possibility that international students and other visa holders could start coming back to Australia.
Tourism minister Dan Tehan has mentioned that once Australia reached that 70 and 80 percent vaccination rate, Australians will be able to travel overseas again and Australians will be able to return home in larger numbers and he also added that “We will also be able to start welcoming international students and those who want to come to work and ultimately tourists as well”.
With more Australian coming back home quicker and doing home quarantine will also free up space for quarantine facilities for other economic visa holders like international students as well.
When is Australia officially opening its border for international students?
It is important to remember at the moment there are no fixed dates for international travel in Australia as yet.
And as soon as we hear any update we’ll make sure we keep you posted with that so make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and our email newsletter.
