As ‘cases’ rise, the Australian Government’s never-ending war on Covid intensifies

Australia’s leaders make Boris Johnson look like the freedom-touting Churchillian he pretends to be.

Back in December last year, I wrote an article for the print edition of Bournbrook Magazine detailing South Australia’s struggle for liberty during the Covid pandemic. I wrote it with the intention of providing a window to my far-off countrymen – a window showing that the struggle against what my brother calls the ‘Epidemiocracy’ is happening everywhere, including in quaint cities like Adelaide.

But my piece now reads like a chapter in a long, perhaps never-ending, story – not the conclusive illustration I hoped it to be. For South Australia, and indeed Australia as a whole, has tumbled further into political and social turmoil. As Covid cases have started to rise across the country this past month, so too has the desire to squash Australia’s liberty.

As I write, New South Wales has seen cases increase by roughly 100 per day. Victoria recently announced 22 positive Covid tests; South Australia, just six. And yet the 16.5 million people who reside in these States, including myself, are locked indoors, with no guessing when restrictions will be lifted (Australia’s leaders make Boris Johnson look like the freedom-touting Churchillian he pretends to be). To put the issue into proportion: 1,400 people out of 25 million currently test positive for the virus.

This begs the question: why are so many people in lockdown when there are so few ‘cases’ and even fewer deaths? The answer is too complicated to be responded to with anything less than a book, but we can see clues littered throughout the pandemic.

Victoria’s first lockdown granted Premier Dan Andrews with a panic-stricken mandate. Much of the Victorian electorate quickly turned to the Premier to find comfort (as do so many people do when panicked), calling for hard and fast lockdowns and an elimination strategy. But even this was deemed controversial by the Federal Government at the time, which branded the elimination of Covid a ‘false hope’.

So you can imagine the bafflement of many when Victoria entered another strict lockdown, this time to nullify the virus after a week or two.

But what was intended to be a short lockdown lasted months, and what was meant to be a flattening of the infection curve did indeed turn into an elimination strategy. Victorians have been in five separate lockdowns since the start of this pandemic.

Protests have started taking place against what is now deemed an elimination strategy. South Australia locked down after seeing just six initial infections – that is an elimination strategy, no matter what dressed-up language health authorities might prefer.

There is a growing tiredness of the boorish Epidemiocracy which now micromanages our lives. And this sense of growing disunity between the people and their Government endears me. It shows that there is an awareness of the disconnect between the people and their unelected, unaccountable overlords. It shows that people don’t want to be risk-free and life-denying. It shows that people would rather accept the chaos of liberty than the comfort of controlled safety.

But is this meek unrest enough to end Australia’s dogmatic and never-ending war on Covid? We’ll see.