Covid 19 coronavirus: Australia locks down its border with tougher restrictions

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced further isolation measures for returning Aussies, saying two thirds of the cases in the country were from a citizen who has come home.

"Our biggest issues, the biggest number of cases related to this," he said.

Morrison said that in addition to signing a self-isolation card on arrival to the country, people will have to be isolated in hotels for two weeks.

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"So, by no later than midnight tomorrow – that is 11:59pm Saturday – states and territories will be quarantining all arrivals through our airports in hotels and other accommodation facilities for the two weeks of their mandatory self-isolation before they are able to return to their home," he said.

"If their home is in South Australia or in Perth or in Tasmania and they have arrived in Melbourne, they will be quarantining in Melbourne.

"If it's in Sydney, it will be if Sydney. If it's Brisbane, and so on."

Morrison said it is the responsibility of law enforcement in each state to enforce these new rules.

"The Australian Defence Force will be there to support those enforcement authorities. And so we will be turning out the Defence Forces to support compliance with these new arrangements," he said.

"The ADF will be supporting those states and territories with compliance checks to ensure that people are at their residences, that they have so worn sworn they would be at, to ensure we get compliance with the self-isolation."

How Aussie quarantine compares

Kiwis still returning home from overseas are considered a high risk of carrying the disease.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced new measures to ensure those returning home either go into self-isolation or be forced into quarantine.

Eight people who flew in to Auckland Airport on Tuesday had tested positive for Covid-19.

The Government has booked hotels near airports to complement Defence Force facilities at Whangaparaoa to require quarantine of arrivals who are symptomatic, who did not have a credible plan to self-isolate or did not have the means to safely return to their home to self-isolate.

All arrivals who are symptomatic are tested.

Up to 10,000 were expected to have arrived by the end of the month although about 30 per cent of people had not shown up as transit became harder.

Arrivals with self-isolation plans would be checked on by the police and they would be taken to quarantine facilities if they failed to self-isolate properly.

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