Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce says Western Australia's strict border rules are "starting to look like North Korea".
WA Premier Mark McGowan scrapped a plan to reopen WA's borders from Saturday, citing concerns over the Omicron variant.
On Friday, the state recorded 18 news local cases of COVID-19. Fourteen of those were linked to existing clusters. It brings the state's total of active cases to 203.
Speaking on Nine Radio, Mr Joyce said he thought people should be outraged by the decision.
"We are supposed to be all Australians, you can't even travel around your own country," he said.
"And there is not a plan in Western Australia for when that is going to open up.
"It is starting to look like North Korea."
Mr Joyce warned the border would remain shut "indefinitely" unless the state had a plan to live with COVID-19.
"The fact that you can travel to London but you can't travel to Perth, I think there is something fundamentally wrong with the federation."
On Thursday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he thought Mr McGowan had made the right call by delaying the border reopening.
Mr McGowan has given no indication of a new border reopening date.
He said people needed to "get a little bit of perspective" about the COVID-19 situation in WA compared to other states.
"When I talk to other Premiers and people in the eastern states, most of them wish they'd had our situation over the last two years instead of theirs," he told ABC Radio.
"I know some people want us to rush decisions. I've found rushing decisions on this to be unwise."
Morrison repeats hard border support
Speaking at a press conference in Melbourne, Scott Morrison was asked if his newly declared support for Mark McGowan's hard border stance was simply because it was popular in WA.
Mr Morrison denied this and said he supported it because the WA health system was not ready for Omicron.
"I'm backing it because the Premier believes that if he were to take that step at this point, the Omicron variant would be at great risk of overwhelming their health system," he said.
"That is their view about what that risk is."
The Prime Minister's comments stand in stark contrast to the repeated assurance by the WA Premier, Chief Health Officer, and Health Minister that the delay to border opening was not because hospitals were unprepared.
Instead, they insisted that WA hospitals could cope with Omicron.
But Mr Morrison said his support for Mark McGowan's border stance was based on hospitals.
"Living with the virus means being able to live with the virus and being able to live with the virus means that your hospital system can cope," he said.
"We've seen the hospital system in Victoria and New South Wales, and in Queensland for that matter and South Australia, come under a lot of pressure, but they've been able to push through."
"And the Western Australian Premier would need to be feeling as confident of that as the other premiers have been."
'You will shut the mines down'
The Prime Minister also weighed in on the ongoing debate in WA over calls for the government to relax its isolation protocols for close COVID contacts from 14 days to seven days.
"We've learned that here if you have furloughing rules for close contacts that run for 14 days and things like that, which is what you used to do in Delta," he said.
"You do that in Omicron, and you will shut your health system down, you will shut your industry down, you will shut the mines down and you will shut down the economy.
"And I have no doubt that the Premier is seeking to avoid that, and it's very important that they adjust their rules for the Omicron variant and not continue to run rules for Delta. Because in that situation, as I said yesterday, you could find yourself with the management of the pandemic being worse than the pandemic themselves."
Mr Morrison said he sympathised with families either side of the WA cut off from loved ones.
Booster vaccination rate lifts in WA
More than 40 per cent of West Australians over 16 have received their COVID-19 booster vaccination just one day out from February 5 — the date WA was originally set to reopen.
Premier Mark McGowan scrapped the state's border opening two weeks ago, warning that WA's low booster vaccination rates would leave it vulnerable to the Omicron variant.
WA's booster rate now trails only slightly behind the national average, but sits above Northern Territory and Queensland.
"People with only two doses of a COVID vaccine have only a four per cent protection against being infected by the Omicron variant," Mr McGowan said on the night he cancelled WA's reopening.
He said he wanted the booster rate "above at least 80 per cent", but left no concrete indication of whether that would replace the original goal for opening the borders – having 90 per cent of over 12s double vaccinated.
Vaccination policy expert at the University of Western Australia, Associate Professor Katie Attwell, said removing the goalpost could make people feel less motivated to get their boosters.
"West Australians are used to the idea of [the border] reopening being linked to specific targets," she said.
"We know that populations were broadly ready and motivated to take the two-dose course. What do people think and feel about not just the third, but perhaps subsequent doses as well?"
Problems persist with initial vaccine rollout
Countries such as Israel have already started offering fourth doses to their population in response to the Omicron strain.
But Professor Attwell said there were failures in the initial vaccination rollout – before the booster – that still need to be addressed.
"Many experts have really sought to make sure we don't lose sight of access issues. That we don't drop the bundle on the need to reach vulnerable populations," she said.
"Whether that's culturally and linguistically diverse groups, whether that's our First Australians, we need to make sure we reach those populations every time we have a [vaccination] push.
Despite being prioritised during the initial phases of the vaccine rollout, vaccination rates among Indigenous Australians remain significantly lower than among the general population.
WA's north remains as the country's least vaccinated region, with less than 70 per cent of its population having received their second dose.
Police 'burst' into church service for mask check
A caller to ABC Radio Perth on Friday said people were shocked and offended after police "burst" into a Catholic mass at a suburban Perth church on Thursday night to check parishioners were wearing masks.
In a statement, WA Police said the officers were responding to a report of people not wearing masks inside the church.
"On Thursday evening, police responded to a report from a member of the public of people not wearing masks inside a church in Mount Hawthorn," a police spokeswoman said.
"Upon attendance, five people were spoken to by police and complied in wearing a mask. One person provided proof of an exemption."
Service disruption 'highly regrettable': Archbishop
Catholic Archbishop of Perth Timothy Costelloe said it was highly regrettable police felt obliged to intervene during the church service.
"The celebration of the Eucharist is the central act of Catholic worship and is sacred to all Catholics," he said.
"It is my hope other ways can be found to deal with this delicate issue in future, and my office stands ready to cooperate with the police in this matter.
"It is the formal and very public policy of the Archdiocese of Perth to do everything it can to facilitate compliance with all the government's requirements in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"It is a matter of regret to me that the police were placed in a position which led them to take the action they did. They should not have been placed in this position."
The President of the Australian Medical Association in WA, Dr Mark Duncan-Smith said it was important that individuals and organisations took responsibility for following restrictions, but he suggested there may be greater concerns than unmasked worshippers.
"I do find it a little bit odd that we still have nightclubs open, which really are potentially superspreader environments, if police are going to churches and checking masks allegedly."
