Gladys Berejiklian is about to become the most hated person in Australia. Her failure to contain the Delta COVID strain, which looks kind of deliberate given her half-arsed lockdowns, is running headlong into everyday Australian’s deepest expectations for their governments, to be protected from the virus. This expectation has been stoked ceaselessly by all levels of leaders for the past 18 months and cuts across local, state and federal jurisdictions, as well as the usual scab grab of interests.
The AFR tries to spin Glady’s vortex as a plan today:
Gladys Berejiklian is seeking to lead Australia out of the pandemic by driving up COVID-19 vaccination rates, so NSW can emerge from its extended lockdown by October even without fully suppressing the state’s growing number of infections.
The NSW Premier has promised a limited reopening at the end of the month of low-risk services for people who are vaccinated, while indicating parts of the Sydney with low cases and high vaccination rates would emerge from lockdown sooner.
NSW is on track to have 70 per cent of its population vaccinated by the end of October and 80 per cent by mid-November. Reaching both goals would mean significant freedoms for NSW, the Premier said.
But it’s not a plan. It’s chaos on the run. At The Australian, while Glady’s is selling freedom she is deploying more troops:
The NSW government is moving to strengthen police powers and significantly increase the number of army personnel on the streets of Sydney in a bid to curb the growing number of Covid-19 cases.
The new powers — to be handed to police commissioner Mick Fuller — will coincide with a surge of pharmacies in the vaccination program as the government races to reach levels of inoculation that would allow restrictions to ease.
Plans to crack down on people breaching restrictions and stop Sydneysiders from leaving the city using loopholes in the rules have exposed a serious split between health officials and NSW Police, which has worsened as the number of infections rises.
While the regions spew:
Residents in the NSW Hunter Region are on edge after a surge in cases has seen many plunged into isolation with Sydney copping the blame from industry and local leaders.
…“For weeks I’ve been calling for loopholes to restrictions to be closed to stop the movement of Sydneysiders and the virus spreading to Newcastle but health authorities have now confirmed the source of the current outbreak came from Sydney,” Nuatali Nelmes, Lord Mayor of Newcastle, told news.com.au.
“With the virus now spreading to our communities most vulnerable, Novocastrians are devastated that our calls for a strict lockdown of Sydney have not been listened to.”
State leaders spew:
Mr McGowan said “you could count on two hands” the number of people arriving in WA every day from NSW at the moment, but he suggested the border restrictions could soon become even tighter.
…“It’s a threat to the entire country,” he said.
“NSW just needs to crush and kill the virus … that’s what every other state has done.
The Feds spew:
The NSW government will jeopardise the planned national recovery from COVID-19 if it gives up the fight to suppress the coronavirus outbreak in Greater Sydney, as Gladys Berejiklian has indicated, Scott Morrison warned.
Make that a double spew:
Frustration is building in the Morrison government over the slow distribution of business assistance in Greater Sydney, as it finds itself bearing the brunt of the blame for a problem that is of the NSW government’s making.
NSW insisted on taking responsibility for handing out the grants to distressed businesses through its Service NSW network. Although the program exists nationally, the NSW government gave it its own name – JobSaver.
…The grants become available after two weeks of lockdown. NSW has been in lockdown since late June, yet only a little more than one-third of the grants have been distributed.
Make that a triple spew, right along with projectile vomiting from the private sector and unions:
Scott Morrison and the national cabinet face urgent demands from business and unions to take control of workplace vaccinations, with ACTU secretary Sally McManus warning the shifting of responsibility for mandatory jabs to employers is a “recipe for division, resentment and confusion”.
The Prime Minister will not endorse compulsory vaccination and has left individual employers to test in court the legality of any vaccine mandates they implement, telling parliament it was a matter for premiers to take the “necessary decisions” to thwart the Delta strain.
Brace for an intensifying pandemic in NSW with rising deaths; possible rising protests and violence; national lockdowns and a ring of razor wire around the NSW leper colony; crazed policy maneuvering from every government and interest group, a proper two-quarter recession plus more RBA printing.
COVID apartheid is here and it ain’t pretty.
