Boarders

From today, only fully vaccinated diplomats, returning Fijian residents, permit holders and those approved by the Covid-19 Risk Mitigation Taskforce will be allowed in.

Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama said fully vaccinated tourists from travel partners including New Zealand, Australia, the UK and the United States can enter Fiji from 1 December.

Victoria, which imposed a tough lockdown after a surge in cases, has reported no new infections since the beginning of November.

The state is also relaxing its rules on wearing face masks.

Australia has recorded about 900 deaths and 28,000 infections in total.

The country has relied on lockdowns, widespread testing and aggressive contact tracing to push daily infections nationwide close to zero.

Australia shut down its international borders early in the pandemic and requires all arriving travellers to spend two weeks in quarantine in designated hotels.

There was, however, some evidence that drastic lockdown measures in the city of Melbourne were having an effect, with daily new infections in the state of Victoria slowing to a near two week low.

"I am more hopeful of that today than I was in the course of the past week," Morrison told reporters in Canberra, as he called on state leaders to cooperate to allow stranded residents to return home.

Australia's federal political system has led to its eight states and territories taking different measures in response to the crisis, resulting in several internal border closures.

Richard Fruean is a former food factory worker from Hastings, Hawkes Bay, but since resigning from the job, has moved to Auckland to live with his parents.

Mr Fruean flew to Tonga at the beginning of March to be with his wife and to file her and their daughter's residency papers to live in New Zealand.

However Mr Fruean was unable to board his return flight back to New Zealand on 31 March due to the borders being closed in Tonga until 6 April.

Mr Fruean said he was worried he would be charged by Tongan immigration for overstaying his visit.