One significant outcome of the Tasmanian election has gone barely without mention by the mainstream media: the apparent lack of a “COVID bounce”.
Premier Peter Gutwein was surely banking on one, when he called an early election on the flimsy excuse of having been pushed into minority government. After all, COVID politics helped deliver a thumping win to incumbents in WA and Queensland.
The Tasmanian Liberals finished the election more-or-less where they had started, so either COVID failed to manifest in any great way, or the government would otherwise have copped a drubbing. The latter seems unlikely: Gutwein has steered Tasmania through five quarters of nation-leading growth. Health remains a millstone, but then, it’s been the bugbear of successive governments for decades.
So have we finally gotten over COVID-mania?
Signs from the US are certainly encouraging.
At least half of all US states have ignored the Biden government’s “health advice”, tearing up restrictions, highlighting rampant fearmongering and the stupidity of many COVID regulations. The new head of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, President Joe Biden’s top source of COVID-19 “health advice”, Rochelle Walensky, in late March forecast “impending doom” and a “fourth wave” for the US if states removed restrictions.
When Republican states Texas and Florida threw aside COVID restrictions such as mask mandates and lockdowns, the Biden White House and its media lackeys went into meltdown. Yet deaths in Texas have plunged by more than 80%. Florida has out-performed Fauci poster-child New York, while its case numbers fluctuated independently of government actions – as they have everywhere. Despite its heavily-aged population, Florida has also outperformed lockdown states.
States such as California and New York look increasingly stupid for maintaining invasive rules that seem to have no practical effect. But perhaps they are learning, slowly. Disneyland in California reopened last week — albeit at 25 per cent capacity, with mask requirements, temperature checks, mandatory social distancing, and a ban on hugs with Snow White and Mickey Mouse. That sounds fun, kids. Disney World in Orlando has been fully open since July, hugs and all.
Americans have been voting with their feet, unencumbered by draconian internal travel restrictions like Australia’s.
In 2020, New York, Illinois, Connecticut and California experienced the biggest net emigrations within the US, according to the 44th annual survey conducted by United Van Lines, a big US removal and relocation company. Florida and Texas have been the big beneficiaries. Being able to go about daily life without being forced to take part in COVID-19 rituals adds to the appeal of lower taxes and a warmer climate.
Businesses are moving, too. Oracle, Hewlett Packard and CBRE Group announced late last year they would be moving their corporate headquarters from California to Texas. Elon Musk, who has been critical of restrictions and panic, is reportedly considering moving Tesla to Texas.
The Australian
Even the CDC and Washington are reluctantly going with the flow and lifting mask mandates – at least a little bit.
In Australia, it’s NSW – significantly, one of only two conservative-governed Mainland states that is the Florida/Texas of Australia. After an initial stuff-up over the cruise ship Ruby Princess, which unleashed Australia’s first wave of infections, NSW has mostly avoided panicked, city-wide lockdowns over just handfuls of cases (for instance, imposing restrictions on just a few affected suburbs in Sydney late last year). NSW has also challenged domestic border closures.
But Australians are being kept isolated at home and prevented from seeing for themselves what is happening in the rest of the world. Instead, we’re being fed the same, steady diet of COVID-porn. Now it’s India’s turn to be the great boogey-man of fear-peddling media, despite its COVID death-rate being no worse than anywhere else, and lower than a great many. While the media shriek about “3,000 deaths a day!”, Peter Hitchens points out that, under normal circumstances, nearly 30,000 Indians die every day, of all causes.
The fear factor has been ramped up particularly in Australia – and even more so in Tasmania – by the very fact that we’ve barely been touched by the virus. Fear of the unknown is the most exploitable fear. New Zealand, again barely touched by the actual pandemic (as opposed to government over-reaction), has likewise been easily manipulated by a panic-mongering government.
Still, does Tasmania’s election result show that we’re finally getting sick of being scared witless and driven into repeated lockdowns and muzzle-mandates?
We can only hope so.
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