The COVID Diaries: Infectious diseases expert Dr Jim Newcombe continues his reflective journey into understanding this pandemic and its place in society. Here, we share another post in his series of blogs about this global viral threat.

The debate about when to open Australia’s international border has finally begun, 15 months after it was first closed. 

Of course, opening the border is not an all or nothing proposition. One would be hard pressed to find a country with no COVID-19 related restrictions on its international border. Even the US is still closed to non-citizens travelling from many parts of the world, including Europe, and requires a negative SARS-CoV-2 PCR result 72 hours or less before entry.

Indeed, keeping up some form of ‘fence’ is just as integral to controlling coronavirus as the ‘hammer’ (lockdowns) and ‘dance’ (social distancing, testing, contact tracing) are.¹