If you were thinking about visiting your extended family Down Under, you might be in for a long wait as Australia announced it is highly likely that it will not be allowing tourists into the country before 2021.

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A post shared by Sydney’s Airport (@sydneyairport) on Apr 5, 2020 at 5:57pm PDT

Australia's Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham was reported as saying that Australians will in fact be "more likely" to not be permitted to travel internationally before the end of the year. Instead, the nation is advocating internal tourism.

“I hope that we can look eventually at some of those countries who have similar successes in suppressing the spread of COVID to Australia and New Zealand, and in working ... with those countries to find safe pathways to deal with essential business travel that helps to contribute to jobs across our economies,’’ he said.

Asked to clarify whether this means that a travel ban will be in place until 2021, the Tourism Minister admitted: "Honestly, I think that is more likely the case."

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An exception may yet be made for international students travelling to the country and willing to submit themselves to a 14-day quarantine period.

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A post shared by Australia (@australia) on Jun 12, 2020 at 4:00am PDT

The news comes hours after New Zealand retracted it's COVID-free status as 2 new imported cases were reported.