By Maddie Pritchard, Tabitha Breare and Izzi Vaughan
Australia announced this week it is to reopen its international borders, bringing new travel opportunities to those who have been previously restricted by lockdown measures.
Australia is the latest in a series of countries to relax border controls that were implemented when the pandemic broke out in 2020.
But after almost 18 months of uncertainty, how comfortable do people feel stepping back into international travel? We asked people around the University of Brighton if they believe it is safe to travel abroad in the current climate.
Georgia McCarthy, studying chemistry, said: ““I feel personally, unless you’re doing it for work or education, you shouldn’t be going abroad because of the pandemic.
“It’s not safe in this country alone, but we don’t fully know what other governments are doing to prevent Covid.
“Unless you’ve done complete research on it I don’t feel that it’s safe, because you’ll be coming back into this country not knowing whether you have Covid or not.”
Richard Smith, who works in hospitality at the University of Brighton, said: “It depends where you go because there’s certain countries that are still, like I know Australia has opened its borders today, so I think I would probably be a bit wary.
“But in theory, if you’re vaccinated then whatever, and you follow the correct procedure with tests and all that.”
Emily Schofield, 19, studying business management and human resources, said: “I’m very on the fence. I think if you’re double jabbed it’s fine.”
“I feel like Australia is one of the safer ones because they’ve taken their lockdown restrictions more seriously than some other countries.”
Mara Moreira, 19, studying business management and human resources, said: “I’m still a bit nervous to go on holiday.
“I didn’t book any holidays over summer – I didn’t want to risk it for them to keep getting cancelled, and it’s expensive now because of the PCR tests. It’s really not worth it.”
