Listening to Australian media the last few days has been like listening to Chinese state media. The same smug triumphalism and ludicrous sneering at foreign critics, and the same parroting of the official narrative. Also like Chinese state media, the drum-beating, phony patriotism was triggered by criticism from overseas.
Americans, who in many states have ditched lockdowns and returned to something resembling normal life, are aghast at what they’re seeing in Australia. What they thought was a sunny land of easygoing surfers and Crocodile Hunters has been starkly exposed as a vast, authoritarian prison camp.
And if we think it’s going to get any better soon, think again. For all the patronising talk of “roadmaps” and dangling the carrot of some magic threshold of 80% vaccinated, it’s beyond clear that the public health dictators aren’t going to loosen their death-grip any time soon.
If you want to see Australia’s foreseeable future, merely look to Singapore.
Having passed the 80 per cent double-vaccination mark last month, the example of Singapore suggests that achieving a milestone coveted by Australia is not a guarantee of returning to anything like pre-pandemic life.
The island state reluctantly delayed reopening measures and re-imposed some restrictions last week after seeing its highest daily COVID-19 infections in more than a year.
“Reluctantly”, they say. Spare me.
Once again, the bureaucratic bullies are banning all the normal social interactions that help make life bearable.
So much for “the vaccine will set us free”.
Alex Cook, an infectious diseases modelling expert at the National University of Singapore, said life had not improved “by as much as we might have hoped”, despite Singapore being one of the world’s most vaccinated countries […]
“The community cases have actually gone up since reaching 80 per cent coverage, in part because we’re allowing more social events for those who are vaccinated and, I dare say, more fatigue at the control measures,” Mr Cook told the ABC.
Get the message? Life will never be normal again. Not if these little Hitlers in labcoats have their way.
Any excuse will do. Even a virus that’s rapidly turning into just another seasonal bug.
“We’re finding quite a lot of breakthrough infections among vaccinated people, but these are mostly mild or asymptomatic.”
Singapore has only 35 seriously ill COVID-19 patients, with seven in ICU, according to its Ministry of Health […]
Leong Hoe Nam, an infectious diseases expert from Singapore’s Rophi Clinic, said the Delta strain had moved the goalposts, in terms of what level of community vaccination was necessary.
The only goalpost-shifting is from the Covid dictators. They’ve shifted the goalposts from “two weeks to flatten the curve”, to “lockdowns for as long as we tell you”, from 70% vaccinated, to 80%, now to 90% and almost certainly beyond.
“They set a target of 80 per cent, which is too low … it would have worked fine for the Alpha strain but this is Delta, a variant with easily two to three times more transmissibility,” Dr Leong said.
“They now need at least 90 per cent vaccination.”
ABC Australia
At least – get that? In other words, these bullying public servants won’t rest until we’ve all submitted.
Even then, as Singapore shows, they almost certainly won’t let us be free if we let them get away with it.
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