in Australia, it was reported on Sky News last nite that the following piece, but a senior writer, was not published in the Print edition of the paper...it only appeared online:
16 Sept: Sydney Morning Herald Op-ed: COVID-19 has hammered home some uncomfortable truths about us as a people
by Chris Uhlmann, political editor
Soon enough there will be a global reckoning on whether the coronavirus defences did more damage than the disease.
It will be driven by the swingeing economic destruction imposed by governments that will deliver millions into poverty, driving internal and external conflicts. Beggared states will turn inward, the world will become more polarised, angrier, more dangerous.
In time it’s a fair bet the cure will be seen by many as the real curse, as people whose lives have been destroyed seek retribution...
In February and March little was known about COVID-19 and the worst was rightly assumed. Australia’s leaders reacted quickly, worked in unison and chose to buy time; to lock their populations down while health systems were fortified with a timetable set for easing their way out...
Now there is no nation plan and that is as indefensible as Victoria’s panic-stricken response. Because now we know much more about the disease and, while it is a serious illness, it is a whole lot less frightening than it is made out to be...
COVID-19 is nowhere near as deadly as the Spanish flu, which killed an estimated 50 million, mostly young, people worldwide. Fifteen thousand of those deaths were in Australia, in a population that was then just 5 million. At the time of writing, COVID-19 had killed about 930,000 people globally. Here 816 have died in a population now pushing towards 26 million.
No matter how hard the death of anyone under 50 is spun, it is so vanishingly rare among Australia’s body count as to be close to zero. If you are a woman, it is zero. In Australia there is a far greater statistical chance that someone under 60 will die in a car accident.
COVID-19 mostly kills the elderly, especially if they have an existing chronic disease. That is not an argument to let them die but it should guide government responses.
Of the 816 Australian deaths the vast majority, 606, were in residential aged care. So if you are going to throw a ring of steel around anything it should be around aged care homes, not Melbourne. The rest of the population should be liberated to get on with their lives while taking sensible health precautions...
The Victorian solution punishes the many for the few. It preferences the very old over the young, mortgaging the future of the entire school and working age population. It is hard to imagine how you could design a policy that is more profoundly unfair or damaging to a society.
If the argument is we must do everything in our power to protect the elderly, then we are already doing well. Federal Health Department data, first published in The Australian, shows there were almost 1000 fewer deaths in residential aged care in the first seven months of this year than in the same time last year...
“The lower number of deaths for this period in 2020 (32,398) compared to the same period in 2019 (33,383) is likely the result of increased influenza immunisation rates, and increased infection control protocols introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the health department note said...
This disease has revealed the character of our leaders and hammered home some uncomfortable truths about us as a people. As a nation we seem comfortable with authoritarianism and too many relish the role of prefect.
And nowhere in this often-opaque democracy has a less transparent court system, bureaucracy, police force or government than Victoria. The people there have been badly served, even as some revelled in the servitude. Its systems of power have combined to deliver the wanton destruction of its vibrant society. Its government has condemned its people to a poorer future, to higher unemployment, more poverty and less opportunity.
Rejoice. Dan Andrews has destroyed the village to save it.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/covid-19-has-hammered-home-some-uncomfortable-truths-about-us-as-a-people-20200915-p55vrb.html
Excellent piece. Really hits home what has happened in every lefty controlled area. Instead of protect the most vulnerable, make it as painful as possible for everyone for as long as possible.
I’ve been following Avi Yemini who has been reporting on Dan Andrews and the Gestapo tactics of the Victoria Police. He’s on Parler, YouTube, and is now working with Rebel News. He’s suing the police department because he was arrested on or about September 5th, during an anti-lockdown protest in Melbourne that he was covering for Rebel News. There were other journalists next to him, and around him at the time, but they singled him out. You could see in the video that he was clearly targeted. He has been an independent journalist for a while, but a day or two before the Melbourne event, he was hired by Rebel News. The cops showed up at his home late the night before the Melbourne protest. When he answered the door, they gave him some excuse that they had to ask him a question about his car, but I highly doubt that was the real reason they were there. It was the next day that he was violently taken down at the protest, and put in cuffs. I believe it was later that same night that the cops once again showed up to his house. It’s clear harassment, and they’ve been harassing, and arresting others, just because they uploaded videos of themselves saying they were going to attend some anti-lockdown event.