Australia is considering keeping it’s international borders shut this year even if majority of the country’s population is vaccinated against the coronavirus. Brendan Murphy, the head of Australia’s health department said, “Even if we have a lot of the population vaccinated, we don’t know whether that will prevent transmission of the virus,”

Australia is examining the potential adverse effects of the Pfizer vaccine following reports from Norway of a number of deaths after vaccine shots. 29 people in Norway died after having received the Pfizer vaccine, most of who had been 75 years of age and above. Al Jazeera reports that Australia is due to begin its immunization programme in February.

Targeted lockdowns and high rates of testing and contact tracing, has seen Australia manage the coronavirus better than most other nations. Zero local COVID-19 cases had been reported on Monday. There were, however, four positive cases, all overseas travelers, reported in Victoria, which is hosting the Australian Open. This takes the total to 9, all of whom were associated with the tennis tournament.

Meanwhile, Australia has reported more than 22,000 local COVID-19 cases and 909 deaths since the first case was detected in the country in January 2020.

Umm Muhammed Umar