Australia’s western state began on Tuesday to allow travellers from Victoria and New South Wales (NSW) to enter without having to quarantine for the first time in eight months, in the latest sign the country is returning to some kind of normalcy.
Passengers on a Qantas flight arrived in Perth, the capital of Western Australia, from Sydney to emotional scenes of families reuniting after months of separation.
The move comes as Australia’s two most populous states have seen little to no new cases in recent weeks, and underscores Australia’s success in containing the Covid-19 pandemic which has killed over 1.5 million people worldwide.
“We’re so happy,” Tithi Kulkarni told reporters in Perth as she hugged her boyfriend Ruchira Jayasena who had been in Sydney for the last six months. “So happy to have him back.”
People entering Western Australia from Victoria and NSW will no longer be required to observe a quarantine in a hotel for two weeks, state Premier Mark…