By JOHN YOUNG
I live in Victoria, Australia, a state which has been in the news recently for the wrong reasons.
There was the disgraceful criminal conviction of an innocent man, George Cardinal Pell, a conviction unanimously overturned by the High Court of Australia. There is the ongoing Lawyer X affair, involving the corruption of the legal system, with high-ranking police officers involved. And now the harsh lockdown restrictions are making world headlines.
Much of this is due to the Australian Labor Party and its Victorian leader, Premier Daniel Andrews. Back in 2008, when Andrews was Minister for Health, he voted, with most of his party, for one of the most brutal abortion laws in the world, allowing abortion on demand up to birth. (There’s an Orwellian touch: The Minister for Health voted for death.)
While the rest of Australia has largely been a success story in handling the COVID-19 pandemic, the state of Victoria has blundered badly, due to gross government mishandling of the situation.
Anyone with a minimum of intelligence could have seen that it was essential to strictly quarantine everyone arriving in Australia until they could be certified as free from the virus. For this purpose they were quarantined in hotels. But they were supervised by security guards who had no experience in the field. This became a farce, with quarantined people allowed to go for walks and even visit shops. Nor were prudent steps taken to prevent those in contact with them being infected.
The Victorian authorities ignored the many concerns being raised, and refused federal help that was offered. The contact tracing system also was inadequate, and here too federal help was rejected.
The result was a major spike in cases, with many people dying, especially those in aged care facilities. In many aged care homes, commonsense safeguards were neglected and residents were unnecessarily exposed to the virus.
The Australian Government Department of Health issued data as at September 11, showing a total of 26,513 reported cases of COVID-19 in the whole of Australia, and of these a total of 19,728 were reported in Victoria. A total of 788 people have died, of whom 701 were in Victoria. Yet only about 25 percent of Australians live in Victoria.
Premier Andrews was the one with ultimate responsibility and should have seen how bad things were, but he failed grossly in his duty. Instead, when the disease spread alarmingly, he imposed harsh restrictions on the whole population.
Melbourne has been under stage IV restrictions for many weeks, which has involved, among other things and for at least much of that time, people being allowed to leave their homes only once a day for up to one hour, no visitors being allowed, even for those living alone, a curfew from 8 p.m. till 6 a.m., compulsory wearing of a mask, meetings of more than two people banned, the closing of many businesses.
There has been television coverage shown globally of several police officers surrounding two old ladies on a park bench who were apparently suspected of some offense. Worse still, a woman who advertised a coming protest was handcuffed in her home in front of her children and arrested. This despite the fact that she had advised protesters to wear masks and to observe social distancing.
And why the nightly curfew? It is not for health reasons but for the convenience of the police, which is a blatant abuse of our right to freedom of movement.
Premier Andrews goes on television every day but dodges all the difficult questions, behaving as though he were auditioning for a part in the British comedy Yes Minister. Many questions concerning his handling of this crisis deserve answers, but he answers none of them.
There is a narrow focus on the threat from the virus while the wider implications are ignored: loneliness, neglect of other health issues, widespread unemployment, a looming debt crisis with its consequences stretching into the future.
A group of Australian doctors have addressed a well-researched letter to the premier, putting the danger from the virus in its overall context, but so far I have seen no response from Daniel Andrews.
They point out that while the virus is highly contagious, it is of limited virulence. And it has caused only a small proportion of the total deaths in Victoria. “The COVID-19 deaths are a relatively small proportion of the 114 deaths per day that are normally seen in Victoria. In comparison, since the start of March COVID-19 has been associated with 3 of the 114 deaths per day.”
As the doctors note, most of the 565 deaths to that date have occurred in nursing homes, where there have been related issues, “including isolation, loneliness, and related diminished nutritional intake.”
“The deaths from influenza each and every year [in Australia] is between 3,500 and 4,000.” Moreover, “the vast majority of deaths associated with COVID-19 have occurred in frail people over 80 years, many of whom also had significant comorbidities.”
The doctors also point out — speaking from their own experience — that people are presenting later with their medical complaints for fear of contracting the virus, leading to a poorer prognosis. “A study in the UK estimated an extra 4,000 deaths from not screening the four main cancers alone and not from lack of treatment.”
I doubt whether Premier Andrews will pay any attention to these facts. If not, will voters reject him at the next state election? I hope so, but I’m doubtful. Many people are so easily brainwashed, particularly when a climate of fear is engineered.
If the virus is rapidly overcome in Victoria, the premier will claim the credit, saying his tough measures had saved us. If the virus persists for a long time he will say things would have been far worse had he not taken these tough measures.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown, on a worldwide scale, how fragile our freedoms are when governments decide to trample them down. It has shown too how strong a weapon fear is, when people are prepared to barter their freedom for safety.
Society is a long way down that road foreseen by G.K. Chesterton when he said that we are moving toward a society where we will have doctors to choose our wives for us and nurses to blow our noses for us.
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