COVID-19 pandemic in Australia

This article's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information. The reason given is: Australia's strategy has since changed, vaccination rollout expanded and community transmission more widespread. Lead particularly needs major updates. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (January 2022)

The COVID-19 pandemic in Australia was a part of the worldwide pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first confirmed case in Australia was identified on 25 January 2020, in Victoria, when a man who had returned from Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, tested positive for the virus.^[5] As of 6 August 2022^[update], Australia has reported over 11,350,000 cases and 19,265 deaths,^[6][3] with Victoria's 2020 second wave having the highest fatality rate per case.

In March 2020, the Australian government established the intergovernmental National Cabinet and declared a human biosecurity emergency in response to the outbreak. Australian borders were closed to all non-residents on 20 March,^[7] and returning residents were required to spend two weeks in supervised quarantine hotels from 27 March.^[8] Many individual states and territories also closed their borders to varying degrees, with some remaining closed until late 2020,^[9] and continuing to periodically close during localised outbreaks.^[10] Social distancing rules were introduced on 21 March, and state governments started to close "non-essential" services.^[11][12] "Non-essential services" included social gathering venues such as pubs and clubs but unlike many other countries did not include most business operations such as construction, manufacturing and many retail categories.^[13] The number of new cases initially grew sharply, then levelled out at about 350 per day around 22 March, and started falling at the beginning of April to under 20 cases per day by the end of the month.^[2]

Australia was one of few countries to pursue a zero-COVID "suppression" strategy until late 2021, meaning it aimed to minimise domestic community transmission. Implementation involved strict controls on international arrivals and aggressively responding to local outbreaks with lockdowns and exhaustive contact tracing of domestic COVID-19 clusters.^[14][15][16] A second wave of infections emerged in Victoria during May and June 2020, which was attributed to an outbreak at a Melbourne quarantine hotel. The second wave, though largely localised to Melbourne, was much more widespread and deadlier than the first; at its peak, the state had over 7,000 active cases.^[17] Victoria underwent a second strict lockdown which eventually lasted almost four months.^[18] The wave ended with zero new cases being recorded on 26 October 2020.^[19][20][21] No deaths from COVID-19 were recorded in Australia from 28 December 2020 until 13 April 2021, when one death occurred in Queensland.^[2]

The nationwide vaccination program began with the first doses of the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine being administered in Sydney on 21 February 2021.^[22][23] The country's vaccine rollout, which fell short of its initial targets and was described as slow, was criticised.^[24][25] Further cluster outbreaks occurred in late 2020 and mid-2021, with several brief "snap lockdowns" announced in certain states to contain their spread, particularly as novel variants of SARS-CoV-2 arrived in Australia.

In July 2021, the Australian government after continually stating COVID-zero was not sustainable, published the 'National Plan' to live with COVID.^[26] As outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant which started in June 2021 in New South Wales spread, almost half of Australia's population and most major cities were in lockdown for at least 3 days during July 2021.^[27][16] The outbreak worsened in New South Wales and spread to Victoria in the following weeks causing new record daily cases in both stated later in 2021.^[28][29] Lockdowns were phased out after 70% of the population was vaccinated in October with most public health restrictions removed after vaccinating 90% of its population in December 2021, as the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant drove further records of infections.^[30][31] International travel began to resume in November 2021 and returned to normal in early 2022.

The government declared the emergency response "finished" in September 2022 and removed all restrictions including the requirement to isolate if one was infected from 14 October 2022.^[32] On 20 October 2023, the Australian Chief Medical Officer declared that COVID-19 was no longer a Communicable Disease Incident of National Significance (CDINS) and ended all national emergency response and coordination, shifting COVID-19 management to a more general infectious disease framework.^[33]

A novel coronavirus that caused a respiratory illness was identified in Wuhan, Hubei, China, in December 2019, and was reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) on 31 December 2019, which confirmed its concern on 12 January 2020.^[34][35] WHO declared the outbreak a Public health emergency of international concern on 30 January,^[36] and a pandemic on 11 March.^[37]

The case fatality rate of COVID-19 is much lower than that of SARS, a related disease which emerged in 2002,^[38][39] but its transmission has been significantly greater, leading to a much greater total death toll.^[38][40]

The widespread reporting of the bushfire season in major media and social media around the world caused a significant drop in the number of tourists coming to Australia, including those from China. The absence of tourist arrivals during this time could have played a significant role in sparing Australia from the spread of COVID-19 in the early stages of the pandemic. This is in contrast to other major cities in Europe and North America, where the early spread of the virus continued undetected until late February 2020 or early March 2020.^[41]