Wednesday 3rd February.
To date, Australia has successfully limited the spread of COVID-19 within it's communities. At time of writing on 3/2/21, Western Australia is in the middle of a 5 day lockdown following 1 case with zero new cases.
(Source: https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/coronavirus-covid-19-current-situation-and-case-numbers)
I'm based in the UK. Seeing friends enjoying normality during an Aussie summer and then seeing images of their kids first day at high school, makes me feel I’m watching footage of another planet.
Even stranger was noting crowd capacity at the Gabba for the Australia v. India cricket test was reduced to 50%. This meant approx. 22000 people were able to attend! It was incredible to see a crowd like this enjoying a major sporting event.
The Australian Open Tennis is due to start this month after competitors have had to complete a 14 day hotel quarantine. The tournament will also have reduced capacity of 50% - assuming the players can get out of the mini-lockdown announced on 4th Feb AEDT
Australia continues to have firm restrictions for entering the country. Currently, only Australian citizens and permanent residents are granted automatic entry (with a negative COVID-19 result mandated in January 2021).
Overseas trained medical consultants/specialists can get exemptions from these border restrictions and have been arriving in Australia to take up new jobs along with their families throughout the pandemic so far. On arrival, they must quarantine for 14 days.
The challenge for medical professionals entering Australia has been more about flight availability and airline efficiency. For example, for most of 2020, economy seat availability from the UK has been poor. Business class availability is easier to book with less changes, delays etc. noted down the line.
If you are a Consultant/Specialist trained outside of Australia and you get offered a job there in the 1st half 2021, the process of medical college administration and medical registration means you'll arrive to start work in 2022 or early 2023. This was always the case pre-covid. So it's never too early to start thinking about a move.