One thing you can’t accuse the Australian or New Zealand governments of is quick thinking. Despite her retrospective claims of “hardernurly” lockdowns in 2020, the timeline shows that Jacinda Ardern dithered for weeks before announcing the first Level 4 lockdowns.
Not coincidentally, the first lockdowns occurred around the time of the first anniversary of the Christchurch massacre. Ardern was adamant that a mass public memorial service would go ahead – only to hurriedly cancel it just the day beforehand. Lest anyone nurse suspicions that Ardern was fully prepared to place a photo-op ahead of public safety, she insisted that the cancellation was based on “expert advice”.
The same “experts”, presumably, who are behind Australia and New Zealand’s persistence in pursuing divisive, hated “vaccine passports”, even as the rest of the world is abandoning them.
In the UK, Boris Johnson, the master of the political u-turn, has rediscovered in some way what it means to be a conservative. Not only has he ditched vaccine passports. On the same day Johnson also published a statement that his government will repeal in the near future some of the emergency powers enacted by the Coronavirus Act 2020. The powers that are “no longer necessary” include powers to close down sectors of the economy, apply restrictions on events and gatherings, disrupt education and child care, extend time limits for urgent warrants, or detain infectious people.
Everything, in other words, that Australia and New Zealand’s Covid dictators are doubling down on.
Meanwhile, the data from overseas makes continual mockery of the blithering of our own so-called “experts”.
“Vaccine passports are being viewed as a redundant measure in light of ongoing community transmission. New research also suggests that domestic vaccine passports increase hesitancy and distrust of governments.”
In terms of ongoing transmission, the report noted that, with a high percentage of the population double dosed, between 1 February and 29 August, there have been – wait for it – 1054 vaccinated deaths and 536 unvaccinated deaths. So much for the ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated’.
Even the EU, not exactly noted for its commitment to personal liberty, is quietly backing away from “vaccine passports”. Just as vaccine mandates in Australia have prompted violent revolt, there were widespread protests and riots across France and Germany as well. After introducing its own “Digital Green Certificate” the EU appears to be walking back from vaccine mandates.
Because vaccine mandates do not work.
Even four years ago, an EU-funded study “found no clear link between vaccine uptake and mandatory vaccination”. “Those [countries] where a vaccination is mandatory do not usually reach better coverage than neighbour or similar countries where there is no legal obligation”, the report said. The EU’s own health commissioner has stated that, “The legitimate goal of achieving the highest possible immunisation rates can be attained through less stringent policies”.
An Italian Professor of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine, Prof Pierluigi Lopalco, argues that mandates are actually counter-productive: “Mandates do not improve vaccine confidence; they make opposition to vaccination even stronger.”
The European Commission’s COVID-19 Therapeutics Strategy indicates that the EU is moving to a therapeutic model for Covid: in other words, admitting that it has become just another seasonal bug. Interestingly, the EU strategy emphasises monoclonal antibodies – the same treatment that the media howled at Joe Rogan for using.
Liberal democracy in Australia is in intensive care, while in other parts of the world, life is being breathed back into it.
Spectator Australia
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