More than 34,000 Aussies around the world remain locked out of Australia and can't fly home, according to the latest government figures.
Of those, 10,400 Australians are stuck in COVID-ravaged India, which is still recording 50,000 cases of coronavirus every day.
In April, when India was gripped by its second wave, 9000 Australians in India had registered with DFAT as wanting to come home.
Since the start of the pandemic, when Australia slammed its borders to the world shut, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has helped 48,700 Australians return, a spokesperson told 9news.com.au, including more than 21,000 people on 142 government facilitated flights.
"The number of Australians registered changes frequently according to people's circumstances," a DFAT spokesperson said.
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Stephen Duckett, the Grattan Institute's health program director and a former secretary of the federal Health Department, said Australia's snail-paced vaccination rollout had effectively left Aussies stranded around the world.
"The reason it was always a race (to vaccinate) was that we wanted to open the borders, and we can't open the borders until we've got a high proportion of the population vaccinated," he said.
Current figures rank Australia dead last in the OECD for fully vaccinated adults by percentage of population.
Led by New South Wales and Queensland, states have repeatedly called on the Commonwealth to open federal quarantine facilities to ease the burden and risk on hotel quarantine.
In March, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the Howard Springs quarantine facility in the Northern Territory would increase capacity to 2000 returned Australians a fortnight, up from 850.
When asked by 9news.com.au what progress had been made on that front, NT Health did not disclose specifics, except to say "considerable improvements" had been made to support the Howard Springs expansion.
"Recruitment and workforce modelling has been undertaken to support the gradual increase in repatriation passengers," the spokesperson added.
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Earlier this month, reports suggested Howard Springs had not yet recruited enough workers to operate at a 2000-person capacity.
Data requested by 9news.com.au showed Howard Springs had taken in 18 government repatriation flights since June.
Most flights carried between 100-200 passengers.
Seven of the government repatriation flights were from India, and five from London.
A federal Department of Health spokesperson said 50 repatriation flights have arrived at Howard Springs between October and June, allowing 8365 people to quarantine.
Howard Springs also caters for domestic quarantine.
Last night, Mr Morrison declared international arrivals in hotel quarantine would be separated from domestic quarantine residents.
It is not known how this may impact Howard Springs.
