South Australia shows the way in reopening borders for NSW

South Australia’s decision to re-open its borders to NSW from Thursday is a victory for clear, evidence-based policy in the sometimes emotional debate about the role state borders should play in controlling COVID-19.

SA closed its border in early July to Victoria and then NSW when a few travellers from interstate were found to have spread the virus into the SA community.

There was nothing wrong with closing borders as a temporary measure. It was a sensible precaution for SA to lock the gate given the uncertainty about whether NSW could control the outbreak that started in Victoria. NSW after all closed its own borders against Victoria and Australia has closed its borders to the world.

Yet, as with all measures to fight the disease, state governments, including NSW, must weigh up the costs and benefits of border closures. Given the damage they cause to industries, such as tourism and families split between states, the borders should be reopened as soon as it is safe.

SA set clear conditions for what it needed to see in NSW before lifting border controls. NSW had to go two weeks without any cases of COVID-19 where the source of transmission is unknown. That condition has now been met.

Other states, however, have adopted a much less transparent and evidence-based approach. They have either closed their borders indefinitely or set criteria for reopening which some fear might never be met.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says she wants to see 28 days without unknown-source transmission before opening up to NSW and she will not reconsider until next month. She insists she is relying on health advice but her tough line might also be motivated by the looming state election.

She has somewhat arbitrarily decided she will reopen direct flights with the ACT and a border zone with NSW from October 1.

WA closed its borders in April to all comers and has refused to lay out any timetable for re-opening despite a series of legal challenges. Tasmania says its borders will stay closed until December at least.

Since many of the economic costs of closures are borne by the federal budget, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has tried to badger the states to re-open faster.

He would like states to switch away from closure of borders to entire states and move to selective bans on specific regions, which are judged by health experts to be high risk.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian has suggested she might follow this philosophy in her approach to Victoria. She says she might soon re-open to people from regional Victoria which has not recorded a case since September 17, but retain the quarantine against greater Melbourne.

After that, NSW should set an example for other states by announcing clear guidelines for how low numbers have to fall before NSW re-opens its borders to Melburnians. South Australia’s standard for NSW of two weeks without unknown community transmission might be a good starting point.

States should also work on relaxing border rules for key workers. Given the urgent need to bring in the harvest, NSW has signed a national Agricultural Workers Code that will allow farm workers to enter the state but with safeguards such as keeping a log of all their movements to help contact tracing.

NSW has shown that it is possible to suppress COVID with carefully targeted social distancing, efficient contract tracing and massive testing. Other states should focus on doing the same.