Western Australia sets 90% vaccination target for reopening – KIRO 7 News Seattle

CANBERRA, Australia – (AP) – While people can now travel freely in more populated eastern Australia, COVID-19-free Western Australia will maintain its strict restrictions until next year, leaders said Friday.

Western Australia is the largest state and covers a third of Australia’s land area. It also has the lowest vaccination rates in the country, in part because the state had few infections and life was relatively normal during the pandemic.

Western Australia is the only Australian state or territory not scheduled to reopen this year. Vaccinated Australians have been able to travel freely around the world via airports on the east coast in coronavirus-affected Sydney and Melbourne since Monday, when a 20-month-old international travel ban was lifted.

Western Australian Prime Minister Mark McGowan on Friday set a vaccination target for 90% of the population 12 and older in order to ease border restrictions. The milestone was expected to be reached in late January or early February.

McGowan said he will set a date for the state to reopen once 80% of the target population is vaccinated, which is expected to be in mid-December.

Once that reopening date was set, it would exist even if the vaccination rate was below 90% by then.

“By world standards, a 90% rate is going to be an amazing feat,” said McGowan.

“Given our current vaccination rates, these goals are realistic and in our field of vision,” he added.

Only 63.7% of the target population in Western Australia were fully vaccinated, according to state data. According to data released by the federal government on Friday, 79.6% of the population aged 16 and over was fully vaccinated.

Other states have or intend to ease pandemic restrictions significantly once 80% of their population aged 16 and over are vaccinated.

The sparsely populated north of Western Australia has some of the lowest vaccination rates in the country.

McGowan said parts of the state could be isolated by domestic borders if their vaccination rates continued to lag. These areas include the Pilbara region, which is home to the country’s lucrative iron ore mining operations.

“Cutting off the Pilbara or any other region is not something I want to do,” said McGowan.

“But if this is necessary to protect the local community and industry, we will take this step based on health advice from the time,” he added.

Government modeling showed that reopening this state at a vaccination benchmark of 90%, not 80%, would mean COVID-19 cases taking 70% fewer hospital beds, 75% fewer intensive care beds, and 63% fewer deaths, McGowan said.

“The difference in easing border controls by 90% instead of 80% is that 200 Western Australian lives will be saved,” said McGowan.

If the state fails to hit the 250,000 extra people it needs to get vaccinated to meet the 90% target, additional pandemic measures will be required on the day it reopens, McGowan said.

Western Australia accounts for only nine of the 1,781 COVID-19 deaths in Australia.

Four of these deaths were passengers and crew members of the German-operated cruise ship MV Artania, who were brought ashore for hospital treatment in the capital, Perth. The state’s last COVID-19 death was reported in April 2020.

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