With the COVID-19 pandemic still raging on around with no end in sight (particularly in Victoria), the government has made it clear to all those Aussies who are living overseas to start coming home ASAP. But as easy as it is on paper – grab a flight, get back to Australia, quarantine in a hotel for 14 days – the reality is that getting back home is actually more difficult for many Aussies stuck overseas than you may think.
Speaking of Aussies and COVID-19, the GOAT team talk about life after lockdown on ‘It’s Been A Big Day For…’ below:
There are usually around 1 million Aussies living overseas at any given time and despite over 357,000 managing to come back home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there are still many who are refusing to come home.
There’s an argument to be made that those people are being selfish, how there’s been more than enough warning ahead of time to get home, and how they made the choice to stay overseas which means bearing the responsibility of hotel quarantine costs and more expensive flights.
It can be hard to feel sympathy for those who chose to be in another country as working overseas is a privilege not everyone has. But we also have to look on the other side of the fence, which is that Aussies are stuck overseas and can’t make it home due to circumstances out of their control.
Beyond the fact that the number of overseas arrivals into Australia has been slashed to just 4,000 a week, there’s a number of reasons why Aussies aren’t coming home despite COVID-19, even if they really want to.
ABC published a great piece titled ‘Stranded on their own‘ about the Aussies who are stuck overseas and it dives into the first-hand accounts of those who haven’t been able to make it home.
The article goes into the usual selection of problems expected from Aussies who can’t make it back home, such as being stranded after testing positive to COVID-19, the lack of flights, and not being allowed to travel overseas at all. It also shines a light on issues that people may not expect, such as passport issues over a stateless baby, being forced to stay inside due to age, health issues, and mountains of debt.
It’s a must read, which you can do right here, and will definitely help add a different perspective as to why Aussies aren’t coming home despite the months of warning.
That’s not to say that there aren’t Australians who are stubbornly refusing to come home despite the COVID-19 pandemic – and boy are there a bunch – but it’s important to understand that coming back Down Under is a lot more complicated than one may think. “They should have come home earlier” is a refrain that’s tossed around a lot but the reality is much more complex than that.
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