Strong majorities support the harsh measures. To those half-jokingly tweeting about invading and liberating Australia, I have some bad news: Australia does not want to be liberated. Still, the rollout has sped up significantly, and the population is approaching an 80 percent vaccination-rate target, lured in part by the carrots of eased restrictions in the future. Such problems are extremely rare, to be sure, but in an overall climate of public health hysteria, these issues proved catastrophic for public confidence. Starting late and slowly, the vaccination program has been plagued by problems, such as the locally produced AstraZeneca vaccine, on which the federal government made its big-and sole-bet, generating serious side effects. Success in keeping the infection numbers and deaths down has bred complacency, which in turn has led to failure. Hence, nowadays a mere handful of new cases is enough to send a state capital city with a multimillion population, or even an entire state, into lockdown in an attempt to contain and suppress an outbreak. Flattening the curve was so successful that it prompted the transition to the elimination, or “zero Covid,” strategy. In addition, state governments have from the outset reacted with hard lockdowns and closures of their own borders.
The few arrivals are subject to a 14-day quarantine. The border remains closed today, with permits required to come to Australia (issued in limited numbers and limited circumstances) and to leave it. It helps, of course, to be an island nation that had closed its international borders at the start of the pandemic. It stands at just over 36 people per million of population, versus 1,853 for the United States. At just under 1,000 deaths, Australia has had the second-lowest mortality among the OECD countries (after New Zealand). Australia has been the victim of both its success and its failure in tackling Covid. Has Covid-19 really turned one of the world’s oldest democracies into a dystopian health dictatorship? As my Polish grandmother used to say, things are rarely as good or as bad as they appear.įirst, some background to the current crisis. “If we invade Australia we will be greeted as liberators,” argues Jack Posobiec. “Australia has lost its collective mind,” according to Ben Shapiro. What the hell is happening Down Under? “Totalitarianism,” says Tucker Carlson. Health bureaucrats advising the citizenry not to stop and talk to their neighbors while walking their dog. Soldiers patrolling suburbs to enforce lockdowns. Nighttime curfews and one hour of exercise per day. Rescue dogs being shot to prevent volunteers travelling to collect them. Riot police firing rubber bullets into lockdown protesters.
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