COVID-19: Australia’s Lockdown Fetish Climaxes
Aussies are ‘sick’ of China’s latest export — Lockdown
Several countries around the world went into lockdown in 2020 to try to stop COVID-19 from spreading. According to Reuters— the police from the Land Down Under had arrested 235 people in Melbourne and 32 in Sydney on Saturday at unsanctioned anti-lockdown rallies and several police officers were injured in clashes with protesters.
Since mid-June, Australia has been dealing with an epidemic of the Delta variant of the coronavirus, with Sydney and Melbourne, as well as the capital Canberra, under severe lockdown. On Saturday, 1,882 new coronavirus cases were recorded, the majority of which were in Sydney.
Victoria police in a public statement, said the following: “It was extremely disappointing to see another example of a small minority of the community showing a complete disregard for the health and safety of not only police but each and every other Victorian.”
The strategy has resulted in violent battles between police and lockdown protestors, but public health authorities have sympathized with the policy, saying it would remain at least until September.
In contrast, The World Bank has reported that, because of lockdowns, millions of jobs were lost, millions of companies were ruined, drug overdoses were on the rise, teenage suicide and despair were on the rise, and cancer screenings were drastically reduced as a result of lockdowns. Throughout the world, 150 million people are anticipated to fall into extreme poverty.
But, unfortunately, despite their government’s tough attitudes, the present lockdowns in Australia and New Zealand are no more effective in slowing the epidemic than the lockdowns of 2020.
According to the Great Barrington Declaration, “lockdown measures are having disastrous consequences on public health in the short and long term.” Reduced childhood vaccination rates, worse cardiovascular disease outcomes, a decline in cancer screenings, and deteriorating mental health are some of the consequences.
These trends will lead to increased excess mortality in the future, particularly for the working class and younger members of society. Lockdowns, according to the WHO, should only be used as a last option.
Lockdown for thee and not for me!
While there is no clear left-right split in the pro-lockdown vs. anti-lockdown debate, it is true that those who are most in favour of COVID lockdowns tend to be on the left.
Citizens must deal with more than just a terrible virus; they must also deal with police states that are becoming increasingly violent and ruthless. Forcing individuals to give up their freedom of choice is conspicuously Orwellian. Tell the dying elderly mother that she must spend her final months alone and tremble; that she cannot be surrounded by her loved ones during the time she has left. Tell a small and medium enterprise owner that their company is not necessary. Assert that this lockdown is for the benefit of the lonely guy who suffers from depression and lives alone in a small studio apartment. Tell the lady whose cancer diagnosis will be delayed, reducing her chances of life, that this lockdown is for her own benefit.
According to the Irish Post, an Australian local government has killed fifteen rescue dogs in order to keep volunteers from an animal welfare organization from travelling to pick them up.
Australian basketball superstar Andrew Bogut has criticised police for firing rubber bullets at protesters at Melbourne’s anti-lockdown rally — but Victorian doctors criticised demonstrators for putting more stress on the state’s hospital system.
In another Lockdown Protest incident, the police attacking an innocent child who had been pleading for his freedom of movement was maced. This video emerged of him grieving in pain and in agony after being hit in the face with pepper spray by police during a freedom rally. #Icantsee
What Australia’s government has devolved into is a source of tyranny. Let us hope and pray that the people of New Zealand, as well as the rest of the globe, come to understand the true nature of lockdowns.
The Mainstream Media’s Jihad against the Protestors
In May of 2020, the BBC, for example, reiterated the talking points of the Belgian administration, which sought to explain that things are not as bad as they appear in Belgium. Lockdowns that were draconian were enacted in locations like UK, NYC or Aussie, but the rationale is that these nations activated their lockdowns too late.
However, regardless of the statistics, lockdowns are always believed to be effective, and the fact that Sweden with no lockdown has a death rate comparable to harsh-lockdown France can only be explained by arguing that France did not lock down severely or long enough according to the opinion of some.
There is very little data to suggest that lockdowns are effective. Lockdown nations’ results vary widely, but pundits disregard this and cling to a dogmatic refrain: lockdowns always work, and Sweden “screwed up.” According to Swedish infectious disease clinician (and World Health Organization (WHO) advisor) Johan Giesecke:
Measures to flatten the curve might have an effect, but a lockdown only pushes the severe cases into the future — it will not prevent them. Admittedly, countries have managed to slow down spread so as not to overburden healthcare systems, and, yes, effective drugs that save lives might soon be developed, but this pandemic is swift, and those drugs have to be developed, tested, and marketed quickly. Much hope is put in vaccines, but they will take time, and with the unclear protective immunological response to infection, it is not certain that vaccines will be very effective.
Another research project examined lockdown regulations and the number of COVID-19 fatalities among US states by political scientist Wilfred Reilly. Reilly describes it like this:
The question the model set out to ask was whether lockdown states experience fewer Covid-19 cases and deaths than social-distancing states, adjusted for all of the above variables. The answer? No. The impact of state-response strategy on both my cases and deaths measures was utterly insignificant. The “p-value” for the variable representing strategy was 0.94 when it was regressed against the deaths metric, which means there is a 94 per cent chance that any relationship between the different measures and Covid-19 deaths was the result of pure random chance.
Overall, however, the fact that good-sized regions from Utah to Sweden to much of East Asia have avoided harsh lockdowns without being overrun by Covid-19 is notable.
In an American Enterprise Institute report by scholar Lyman Stone, in regions where lockdowns were implemented, either the mortality toll was already on the decline or remained the same as the year before to the lockdown showing impacts. To put it another way, proponents of lockdown have claimed credit for patterns that had previously been noticed before lockdowns were imposed on the general public. In spite of the fact that politicians and disease “experts” have insisted that lockdowns be used forever until a vaccine exists, this development has happened. As Stone comments:
At this point, the question I usually get is, “What’s your evidence that lockdowns don’t work?”
It’s a strange question. Why should I have to prove that lockdowns don’t work? The burden of proof is to show that they do work! If you’re going to essentially cancel the civil liberties of the entire population for a few weeks, you should probably have evidence that the strategy will work. And there, lockdown advocates fail miserably, because they simply don’t have evidence.
Economic collapse and civil unrest will be more likely in the long run for Australia if the lockdown-caused economic devastation persists. The political truth is that things can’t go on as they are without endangering the governments that are already in place.
More practically, under the Australian political system, state premiers may be deposed in days without Parliament ever convening. although it doesn’t seem to be a bother as the evidence shows. For the residents of Melbourne, Sydney etc., that’s the only way out of this bind. Even though viruses will always be around, it is possible to make the premiers pack their bags and go home and let the individual decide voluntarily within their subjective community what is best for each other. Because the anger and the suffering are reflected by these protestors whose livelihood have been crippled by these “Orwellian” Lockdown 2.0!
