Who is to blame for COVID apartheid?

COVID apartheid is here. What does it mean? Chaos:

On the first full day of the complete NSW lockdown – a step Greater Sydney’s closure was designed to avoid – Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant pleaded with the state’s residents to take COVID-19 seriously.

“We are at a fork in the road and we have to decide what path we are going to choose,” she said on Sunday. “I cannot describe my concern level if we do not drive these cases down.”

A few minutes later, Premier Gladys Berejiklian said: “The experience of delta is that no other jurisdiction has been able to eliminate it. We have to learn to live with it.”

Yet we also have this:

NSW residents are waking up to even tighter restrictions today after the official launch of Operation Stay Home.

Hundreds of ADF troops have joined forces with police officers to enforce the new rules, which include staggering on-the-spot fines for Covid rule breakers.

And the development of a life or death scab grab:

People aged 20-39, who were identified by the Doherty Institute modelling as super spreaders of COVID, will be targeted for the one million Pfizer doses the Morrison government has purchased from Poland.

Of these, 530,000 doses will be sent urgently to a dozen Sydney local government areas, where the outbreak remains out of control. They will start being administered in state clinics this week, Scott Morrison said.

Oh dear:

Susan* is a 65-year-old located in regional New South Wales. She is particularly vulnerable to Covid-19, due to her age and also her weakened immune system, as she suffers from a rare blood condition.

Advised by her doctor not to get the Astra Zeneca vaccination, she has been patiently awaiting word on when she will be able to get Pfizer.

Even if you’re granted an exemption to allow you to get Pfizer, which can be difficult especially for those located outside of Sydney, Susan said there’s still not enough supply to vaccinate all of those with rare conditions who are at higher risk of covid complications.

“It’s about as rare as gold here, to get the exemption for Pfizer and have an appointment set up for it,” she told news.com.au.

Ian Verrender gives Mad Gladys both barrels:

Had NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian called a two-week lockdown when the Delta variant first appeared in beachside Bondi — and it worked — the total cost would have been less than $3 billion.

AMP Capital’s Shane Oliver last week put the total bill so far at $17 billion. And counting. With the variant now running rampant, the total could end up several times more, if it can be contained at all.

…McKinsey concluded that lockdowns were not the problem. It was the virus. Health and the economy went hand in hand and countries that contained the virus best were in pole position for a rapid economic recovery.

If ever there was a textbook case, it was Australia. With the virus almost eradicated, confidence rebounded and the pace of the recovery was astonishing. The rest of the world watched on in envy as Australians roamed about freely, frequented restaurants, beaches, sporting events and held large social gatherings.

Hard to argue with that, so long as one is looking only backward. What about forward? Paul Kelly:

The premiers continue to run their agendas. And the premiers are divided. On a bleak Sunday NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian admitted reality, saying it was “not possible” to eliminate Covid cases, while West Australian Premier Mark McGowan boasted that even at 80 per cent vaccination, his goal would still be “zero” cases and he would attempt to achieve that.

Sydney and Perth are divided by more than the Nullarbor; they have different Covid experiences and have conflicting views on the national cabinet opening-up strategy that Scott Morrison worked long and hard to secure.

…Berejiklian’s aim is to find a “normal” life by vaccination – living with the virus, its cases and its deaths, restoring freedoms and economic life. Yet McGowan’s post-vaccination goal is a virus free utopia, guaranteed to be wildly popular in the West.

…Beyond the NSW problem is the opposing problem of McGowan’s contradictory vision. McGowan, like all three ALP premiers, attacks Berejiklian’s lockdown as too weak and says her remarks about opening threaten the national cabinet decision. Yet it is McGowan who trashes the spirit and purpose of the national cabinet agenda while upholding its letter.

…The premiers are running the show with likely alarming consequences for our unity, our cohesion and our national economy.

Not much fun there, either.

What do I think? In the short term, I have sympathies for both arguments. In my view, Mad Gladys has taken this path out of political and personal pride, not good judgement. She is to blame for the NSW, and thus Australian, mess. The price will be very high.

But, we are going to have to make this transition in the near future so we need to get on with vaxxing-up and moving on. That said, if it were properly managed, it gives us more time to observe any foibles and blowback in other nations. So Mad Gladys has sacrificed an extraordinary national health advantage out of pure narcissism.

As for identity and the federation, WA resistance will crumble with the iron ore price as its economy and budget go under. There’s little chance of any kind of secession taking root in those circumstances.

Above all else, the lesson here is that having carpet-baggers and psychos for pollies costs you dearly in the end. At the head of that queue is not state leaders but the Australian prime minister.

Marketing and realty hack Scott Morrison calamitously denied Australia the chance to be fully vaccinated at this stage, as well as exposing us to the virus by failing to centralise quarantine. He has also conspicuously failed to unite the states. Indeed, he often played one off against another.

These are the three structural failures of pandemic management from which all else flows and they constitute the single worst policy fuck-up in modern Australian history.