Will no one rid us of our Covid-dementors? Gladys Berejiklian says restrictions could remain in place after 80 per cent full vaccination. Yet after weeks and weeks of ever-tightening restrictions, case numbers were still rising and last Friday crashed through the 800 daily ceiling. How does she think this will combat vaccine hesitancy? Â
Daniel Andrews has, if anything, become even more arrogant. The Doherty Institute’s Jodie McVernon and ANU’s Peter Collignon have seen no evidence that overnight curfews curb the virus spread. Andrews airily dismissed them: ‘It is not for me to prove the efficacy of any one measure’. Police Association Victoria Secretary Wayne Gatt wrote in The Herald Sun: ‘I hope that our members do not have to ever actively enforce this ban on playgrounds.’ He fears that enforcing ‘unpopular and deeply restrictive rules for a prolonged period’ would harm community support for the force. Â
In Canberra, suffering perhaps from relevance deprivation syndrome while macho state premiers imposed tough lockdowns to increased popularity, Andrew Barr declared a shutdown on 12 August based on one case. Yet a week later, with 67 active cases, there was not a single Covid hospitalisation in the ACT. Not to be outdone, across the ditch Jacinda Ardern shut down the whole country based on just one case.
Read the article by Ramesh Thakur in The Spectator.