Here is another point of view on the situation. My wife is presently “serving time” in quarantine in Sydney. Her mum is due to undergo spinal surgery (her 8th), and my wife decided to travel to Oz to assist her in the recovery. To fly to Australia, she had to purchase a ticket at 6x the regular price. This is due to the government regulations heavily restricting the number of passengers on all inbound flights. She flew Qatar Airways Boeing 777 from Doha (15-hour flight) with a total of 30 passengers on board.
To board the flight, she had to present negative test result. Upon arrival, she, like all non-politician passengers, was placed in quarantine and had to undergo another covid test. The quarantine cost, by the way, is 3000AUD. At the end of the first week in the quarantine, she had to do another test, and at the end of this week, she will need to do yet another one in order to be “released”. The three tests she’s done so far were all negative. She’s also already had two shots of the Moderna Covid vaccine. This begs the question – what the f***?! In quarantine, she’s not allowed to leave her room at all or meet with any other passengers from her plane despite the fact she’s travelled with these people on a 15-hour flight.
Now, my mother in law’s surgery had been postponed several times already due to the state government’s postponements of all “non-essential” medical procedures. Meanwhile, the lady is suffering tremendously and, according to her neurosurgeon, almost certainly getting permanent nerve damage. I do wonder if it was
Gladys Berejiklian (NSW Premier) rather than a regular person, would the same apply?
I do not think the above is fair, reasonable, or rational.
Now, let’s look at the economy. For instance, education services to international students – depending on the year, Australia’s 3rd or 4th largest export (and Victoria’s largest). The industry is being decimated, and with it, the local businesses providing students services. Overseas students’ fees fund half of all research conducted by Australia’s universities; the research will be cut. The tourism and hospitality industries are obviously struggling too, as are many others. How well and how quickly will these industries recover is anybody’s guess. Before the pandemic, Australia used to be serviced by 52 international airlines; now it is 18, most if not all of which are losing money on their flights. These are not easily reversed trends.
At present, Australian citizens cannot leave the country without a permit! It’s like Poland under the communist regime or the German Democratic Republic who had a barb-wired wall and a minefield to keep people from escaping. But, I suppose since “Our home is girt by sea” no wall is necessary. All these were for the “benefit” of the people. And yet, despite all these lockdowns and limitations, the virus in Australia is spreading like wildfire.
Are the actions of Australia’s state and federal governments correct and acceptable? I do not think so. They locked the country down and created issues from which the economy and, therefore, people will take a significant amount of time to recover. While doing all this, they failed to secure the people from the disease. They have also failed to prepare for when the country needs to open, which will eventually happen. They failed to secure vaccines in time, and they have been unable to prepare the healthcare to deal with the situation. Keep in mind it was not known at first if there ever would be a vaccine. Yet besides locking the country down, they have done absolutely nothing to prepare to deal with the disease if the vaccine would not become available or was not very effective.
Politicians do not care about peoples’ problems; these do not apply to them. They get paid on time, and they travel. And when they do, they do not need to quarantine. It is pretty reasonable, I suppose since they are so dodgy, the virus is keeping its distance from them in fear of catching a nasty case of “politician”.
Politics explained – poly, from Greek -meaning “many”, ticks – blood-sucking, disease-spreading parasites.
Rant finished.
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