Covid in Australia

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
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I don’t care about mask mandates. I care about curfews, 5km radiuses, stay at home orders, no international students, no domestic/international travel, the ability to protest…

Businesses need to open, people need to work… People need to travel for leisure, business and to visit family. Kids need school/university, social interaction etc.

We need rights again, being an Australian citizen ought to actually mean something

I’m willing to accept some trade offs… But I’m never willing to accept the millitary patrolling the streets… Caps on how long you can fucking exercise outside for

Our youth paradigm hates NSW and Gladys… I hate her too… but good on her for taking the first initiative by planning to loosen restrictions for the vaccinated

There’s a pretty big youth/young adult demographic here that is fully supportive of Aus shutting out the outside world… Kids who, I’m presuming have no idea how economics work

I’m not particularly educated re economics either, but with what little I know… It’s fairly obvious you can’t remain a first world, prosperous country when totally shut off from the rest of the world whilst other countries trudge on.

KeEpInG aUsTrAlIa SaFe!

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Vic has noted a dip in cases. 42 today
… But still, the vast majority infectious in the community. Numerous mystery cases with unknown origin

I predict this will blow up, albeit at a slower rate relative to that of NSW.

Wouldn’t be suprised if we are looking at 5-700 cases/day by the end of September.

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Dudes, I fucking guarantee you they will abandon the zero covid strategy. Stop thinking so much about this shit. If they don’t, I’ll send you the entirety of my hypothetical remaining roid stash that’s just past their hypothetical expire date.

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The worry is Aus shuts out the rest of the world for 3-5 years or so.

The prospect of vaccinated travellers being unable to leave in 2023-2024 is a very grim, albeit unfortunately realistic prospect

If Scott Morrison wins the election we will probs be fine. Our labour contender (typically a centre right to centre left party with an autocratic slant) is currently a member of the “labour left” of which encompasses the “democratic socialist” realm

He’s made absurd statements over opening up. Constantly lambasting the 80% target, statin Aus can’t even think of reducing border restrictions til we can domestically produced mRNA vaccines.

Earliest timeframe for that is early/mid 2023… If he wins… those stranded Australians overseas might as well try find citizenship elsewhere.

I’m not sure when the federal election will be held. Could be as early as late this year or as late as early next year.

After this botched vaccine rollout, I can’t see Scott Morrison winning. He’s the preferred PM by far… But party preference has a heavy labour slant

As of recent labour has also aligned with the “free Palestine” narrative

I’ll be fairly unhappy if labour wins… Particularly if they suddenly snap everything shut again… Then again, my plan is to be overseas by the time he’d come into power.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailytelegraph.com.au/coronavirus/albo-well-back-pms-plan-to-reopen-australia/news-story/09435d21c4751da0efad9f0b733dbb3e%3Famp

Nevermind…

If he were to go against opening up I imagine it’d be tremendously unpopular. With be exception of WA whose residents (no joke) on average would actually like to be shut off from the rest of the world… including the rest of Aus indefinately; the statistical majority of Australians appear to want Aus fully open by 80%, a target of which should be acquired by November.

I’m hoping they IMMEDIATELY allow stranded Australians back into the country. Like… The second we hit 80%

Then purportedly we might open up travel bubbles to countries like… Sigh… Singapore

450

:laughing:

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It looks to me like Australia is lost. As in it has fallen into pure authoritarianism. I clearly do not know what it looks like on the ground, but the reports are horrific. Deploying military to enforce covid restrictions? Wow!
Some of the rules are hard to believe, you cannot visit friends? You cannot go outside for more than an hour, like covid is a zombie ready to attack you outside, when outside is the safest place to be really. One person from a family has to be designated to go to the store. It is really hard to swallow.
I did see some protests, that was good, but what I am seeing out of Australia is as bad as china. Neighbors encouraged to tell on each other for violating covid restrictions.
And the best part, is that the government has no fear of the populous. They took your gun and you willingly gave them up. So now you have no power to act with force.
I feel bad for yall, but at the same time? What were you thinking, allowing this authoritarian creep? They never do it fast and there is always a reason for the harshness and authoritarianism. I guess people believe the movies too much. Like one day a bad guy gets up in the morning, creates an army and overthrows the government in a coup and then restricts the populous for their own good. In reality, yall voted this in. Not all, but most.
And this is not even remotely resembling ‘the science’… This is a monster.
Don’t worry about your misery the U.S. is right behind you, we are falling headlong strait into authoritarianism. It’s not that bad yet, but it’s coming. But, we have our guns and when the government inevitably falls apart, we have the means to protect ourselves.
We are certainly no one to criticize, as to look what we did to ourselves. It won’t be long before we are like you and China. Pretty soon, expressing yourself on t-nation won’t be allowed.
I would recommend you guys organize and resist. Protest and disobey. Civil disobedience. If done properly, when there are too many to arrest and shoot, they will have to back off. Or you can just live under the boot, your choice.

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What are you guys planning to do about it? Can you live like this? Is this what you want for your kids? And if you don’t have any, don’t make any. Why bring them into this?

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LOL… I remember last year predicting this. And I was told I was crazy, that it would never happen and that I was just stupid. Well, today’s conspiracy is tomorrow’s reality. The elites and the power hungry are as bad as they seemed. And yes, they had no issue crossing the line. The U.S. isn’t far behind. So, we still have time. The question is, are we going to just allow this to overrun us like the austrialains did or are we going to fight back?

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Over what… At the time 400 cases/day, now 1000

Resulting in near uniform widespread condemnation from the population… Police opened fire on the protestors with rubber pullets, pepper spray, tear gas etc

People are encouraged to doxx protestors and hand names to the authorities.

I didn’t give up shit. I wasn’t even alive when John Howard banned guns.

Very obedient, lazy and fairly unintelligent population… Australians descend from a penal colony.

That started a long, long time ago… around the Nixon era. It isn’t a descent in the US, you guys remain relatively stagnant… Aside from the past five years, slight erosion in democracy, that trend may slowly continue. There would be far too much pushback within the general population for you guys to descend into Aus… A legitimate police state at the moment. The USA is not going to come close to Aus for the foreseeable future.

Doubt it, though in Australia people have been arrested over anti lockdown/pro protest social media rhetoric.

This will lead to mass arrests, imprisonment… Even when 50,000 people stormed Sydney. The response was to find, fine and arrest as many as possible after all was said and done

If there aren’t enough police, the millitary will be brought in

Best bet (in my biased opinion) is to wait until the borders open up (or apply for citizenship elsewhere if possible) and get the fuck out.

A family member of mine left the country on a program recently. Upon arrival people were talking to him “Australia has gone mad! It’s totalitarian”. The rest of the world appears to be watching in shock and awe.

Firstly… I’m twenty… And I’m sterile…

Me? I’m planning to leave… Like next year. It won’t be easy, but I’d rather live a hard life than reside in a police state hellbent on enforcing societal infantalism. When/if the authoritarian premier’s are chucked out for this, when/if a swing in the proverbial pendulum occurs I’ll think about coming back. I don’t want to leave, but this trajectory Aus is heading towards almost leaves me with no choice

I no longer identify with the culture here in any way whatsoever. I’m fuelled by a blinding rage. Seeing the large portion of the population back such blatantly oppressive measures whilst we are on the brink of the largest recession we’ve ever recorded leads me to think we are perhaps one of the world’s dumbest nations. We are about to hit 1 trillion in debt
… up from almost no debt fifteen years ago, large portion mediated through the past two years.

I keep hearing from kids my age “can you believe these cunts are protesting? All they’re doing is SpReAdInG tHe ViRuS! Lock them up!” Well millions are out of work… Not that you’d know what thats like… Many are suffering from serious psychiatric distress… No school, prolonged isolation for children is going to result in adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes

People here seem to have some odd form of acquired helplessness… Or Stockholm syndrome. Terrified of the prospect of opening up.

Looks like I’m going to be in lockdown until November. Fuck this country

You know we have curfews in place… Five kilometres radiuses (3.1 miles) regarding how far you can travel from home

Looks like they’re going to shift the goalposts for opening up tommorow… Shocker…

Our federal PM Scott Morrison is actually starting to fight back against this, but I think he will be voted out in favour of Anthony Albanese, a democratic socialist who backs an insular covid zero approach.

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When I say ‘you’ I am meaning Australians in general, not you specifically. I wish you luck bud. I don’t know where you ought to go, I wouldn’t recommend the U.S. we’re right behind you.

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Hey good! I hear the manhunt is over. The man who sneezed in an elevator has finally been apprehended! He’s worse than a murderer…
When you find a nice place to land, let me know I may join you…

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There was a convict (bad guy) running loose in NSW. He was also covid positive and trying to evade authorities

He was deemed “public enemy number one”

Had me thinking “gee, worse than all the gang members here? Because he has delta?”

NSW has 1,000 cases/day… Catching him won’t being that down to zero

1,000 might not seem like much to you, because it isn’t. Factor in the population of NSW is around 8 million and the case load is equitable to quite a few American states.

Looking at narratives now and premier’s are squirming around, trying to shift goalposts for opening up that were already some of the highest in the developed world.

Why? Excess cases/deaths

So if 80% of the adult population isn’t enough to open up… Then… When?

Either we open up, or we try adapt to an insular lifestyle… At which case despite the difficulty most of my family members here would probably pack up and leave. Travel is expensive, but we all have an extensive list of family members residing overseas.

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He’s the reincarnation of Stalin!

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You all see why I have been saying I don’t believe that even zero gun regulations will enable a population to defend itself against government “tyranny”? The real fight is not a physical one. It’s one based on public sentiments and propaganda. Whomever controls the main narrative will generally win.

Ok, but seriously, Australia is both a First World country and a Commonwealth one.

With regards to the former, even if purported dictators were to emerge, they would never completely tank the economy. There’s a reason why 3rd World authoritarian countries never reach your level of development. Their leaders are FUCKING STUPID. Streetwise? Yes. Understanding complex stuff like macroeconomics vs human behaviour? Fuck no. If you want to rule with an “iron fist” like the late Lee Kuan Yew, you still need to ensure the economy develops.

For the latter, the laws invoked are pretty much in line with Commonwealth Law provisions for states of emergencies. The question is whether respective governments in such countries choose to invoke them AND enforce them. UK did but enforcement was sorely lacking.

Singapore did too and they enforced it pretty damn well. They even used what is similar to what’s called an “Act of State”(for easy googling) in the UK which essentially allows the government to temporarily take control of private enterprises when the previous wave involved mostly migrant workers living in private dorms separate from the main population. They also took over large exposition halls to isolate and treat cases that were not serious enough to be hospitalized since these workers were mostly under 40 and generally healthy. Private hotels and chalets were taken over to house citizens under isolation.

Australia seems to be following what Singapore has been doing (although your methods are much less authoritarian. You know why people there don’t protest on the streets? Because they don’t have the balls to even under such extreme circumstances.) before the vaccination rates got high enough. They used the latter as a chance to open up because of the strain on the economy. Their leaders aren’t complete idiots although lots of people I know would swear otherwise. There has also been immense pressure from business associations and the like. Last year’s elections saw the ruling party garnering the lowest votes in half a century.

There are already hints from public statements that Australia will be abandoning the zero covid policy. The problem is that they painted themselves into a corner PR-wise without anticipating the transmissibility of delta. They need a way out, which is a high vaccination rate. It wouldn’t even surprise me if they got to 50+% and start easing restrictions while introducing vaccine passports.

The current worldwide narrative is that covid is now a “disease of the unvaccinated”. I don’t buy that shit. My opinion is that a vastly increased number of cases are now asymptomatic while still being, though probably a lot less infectious due to more people getting vaccinated and aren’t detected unless frequent mass testing of large segments of the population is conducted. But you can be damn sure they’ll use it.

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Can’t help but agree with you. People everywhere generally have no idea about history, Australians are no different. Unfortunately our founders didn’t have the foresight like the US to enshrine many if any constitutional rights(esp 2A). They never envisioned a time where formerly sensible people would allow their perceived rights to be eroded.
At the time Australia was a more homogeneous country. No threat of terrorism, low crime, relatively un authoritarian governments, no obvious communist style propaganda telegraphing their intentions to the masses.

A short 25 years after the gun bans, just one generation the Australia of the past is barely recognisable today as the same country.

Most of the population now lives in metropolitan areas, rather than in the country where firearms used to be a part of daily life with hunting and pest eradication. I’m old enough to remember when seeing someone(non police) with a firearm in public was not a cause of concern or panic, in the general population.

The role of women in politics has definitely been against strong manly independence, and a push for dependence on the state to protect the individual. This has lead to the Nanny State, which insinuates itself into every aspect of our private lives.
Like the saying goes…

                                those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety
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There’s so much venting in this thread, I don’t concur with some of the sensationalism @unreal24278 is presenting herein - however in SA we’ve been fortunate to avoid any serious lockdowns, as opposed to VIC/NSW that’s copped more than their fair share. So I can’t speak for someone who’s been in extended lockdown and the frustrations that can come with that.

A few things to keep in mind please to keep some kind of perspective:
-Take the media here in Oz with a grain of salt. Plenty of clickbait out there…
-We didn’t order enough vaccines of differing types early enough at the start of this (plenty of AZ ordered, Pfizer order ‘should’ have been bigger in hindsight) - but on the flip side here’s hoping other countries that NEEDED them earlier than us in Oz got them (as we are fortunate to be an island nation with good border controls thus able to suppress numbers until we get enough people vaccinated)

-Our Government is slow in getting things sorted and setting up mass vaccination hubs (I’d wager governments all over the world are not quick paced, with all the bureaucracy etc within public services). But the numbers are increasing and it’ll just take time and patience to reach higher % vaccinated.

-Our daily jab rate is steadily increasing

-We are a large country, with most of our population in cities, but plenty of distance between high population centres. There’s challenges in getting all those remote townships etc sorted on the jab front.

-the above doesn’t help the businesses, people directly affected. Long term the mental, emotional, physical, financial toll will be massive.

Not looking to get into slinging matches, we still live in a great country, and we should be thankful for all the benefits we have in our multicultural society.

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How much longer are these alleged benefits going to last, with a totalitarian approach?

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And?

@dt79 you’ve mentioned not being surprised over our approach as we are a Commonwealth country.

Fair enough, but how/why did we end up becoming more authoritarian than the UK? How did we end up with SUCH an obedient, subservient population?

Britain/UK used to be the ultimate nanny state, Australia took over around 6-8 years ago

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Or, like with every other pandemic in history. We do our best not to get it, get the vaccine if you want it and go on with life. Some people will get it, most will be fine, but a few will perish. But it’s their own personal choice. They can get vaccinated and reduce their chance of death until near 0. Or you can hide like a prisoner on the run and hope that covid just goes away. Covid is never going to go away.
You can lock down forever and wish you were dead, or you can take the risk of living and you might get it and if you are vaccinated, you shouldn’t have a bad experience, mostly. And if you choose not to get vaccinated, well that was your choice and if you get it and you die, you made that choice.
This isn’t about covid. We all know that. This is about power and control. And while yall were asleep and compliant soreal authoritarian douche bags got power and now they are happy to wield it over you. Get out as soon as you are able, before they build walls to keep you in. To where? I have no idea. But if you find a nice place to land, let me know I might join you.

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This infers hospitals don’t overflow, however that isn’t the worry here. We have a public agenda of baseless fear mongering and hyperbolic rationale as we have dug ourselves into a bit of a hole. Authoritarian politicians catered towards a “protectionalist, isolationist” agenda and backing down now would be political suicide… the way out for them is to shut out Australia and convince the public the outside world is imploding… Which is more/less what Mark McGowan and the QLD premier is currently trying to do.

This sounds logical… Logic is unaustralian!

agreed

I stopped supporting it after the second lockdown. We were duped, the rhetoric was “flatten the curve, live out a normal life”

Within Victoria the longest stretch we’ve had without locking down within the past 18 months s 62 days… Some states, like SA, QLD and WA have managed to escape the majority of lockdowns, but it’s only a matter of time until a single case trickles in and they’re back under stage 4

Will do

I don’t think they’ll do this. Rather travel will open up, albeit it’ll be subject to heavy restrictions. They’ll make it very difficult to leave, but people who need to relocate for work/applied citizenships should be able to get out. At worst we become an insular hermit economy, but those who wish to leave will be allowed to leave, with the caveat being they probably won’t be allowed back.

If Scott Morrison manages to stay in power however Australia won’t go back to “normal” as mass surveillance bills, restrictive, intrusive policies will continually pass through parliament but citizens should be able to travel. I’m thinking we turn into Singapore without the death penalty.

We’ve even blocked Australian’s with dual citizenships from coming into/leaving the country, how pathetic is that!

I have two options as to where I can go. I won’t detail them on here though.