Ten months ago, I wrote about how Australia was in danger of living out an inverted version of the plot of the 1959 movie, “On the Beach”.
Told ya so.
Around half of the population of Australia are back in the economy-destroying lockdown again because 1 person in a population of 24 million is in ICU with the Kung Flu.
In the meantime, a greater percentage of the adult population have held the position of Prime Minister than have been fully vaccinated.*
Before accusations of hypocrisy arrive, despite what I wrote here, I’m not an anti-vaxxer, quite the contrary; I want all of you to take the shot. I’m just waiting for the trial to finish first.
We are living in an age of complexity where an ability to navigate with critical thinking and acceptance of nuance is paramount.
Unfortunately, some kind of negative feedback loop has been in operation in politics and journalism over the last several decades resulting in the situation we find ourselves today; woefully inadequate and unskilled leaders and partisan reporters with a pathological lack of curiosity.
The two most serious consequences of this are that grown up conversations about the strategy and tactics for handling the virus are not had in public and a destructive battle of blame-shifting is playing out between the states’ and federal governments.
The result of this institutional retardation is what Australians are currently facing; neither a vaccinated population nor a “Great Barrington” community immunity approach while protecting the vulnerable.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world seems to be emerging, blinking, out of their homes and back into the football stadia, pubs, restaurants and nightclubs.
Bill’s Opinion
How ironic the country that gave us Steven Bradbury now finds itself the fallen leader as the rest of the world closes in on the finish line.
*Politico.com have fact checked this and have concluded it is incorrect and was a clumsy attempt at humour. But, there have been a ridiculous number of incompetent PMs in the last two decades and an embarrassingly low number of vaccines rolled out.