Unpacking Domicron Perrottet's Fateful Decision
The conservative (small c here) thing to have done with respect to the pandemic as it stood, coming out of lockdown in NSW would have been to maintain some of the controls in place. This isn't a controversial thing to say. After all, the whole point of the response to the pandemic carried out by governments has been to mitigate risks of infections spreading. All this talk of needing to "flatten the curve" back in 2020 as well as the QR codes used to track the comings and goings of citizens (and in the process the citizens giving up their privacy in exchange) as well as restricting numbers of people at indoor events and so on was to ensure the pandemic did not go out of control. It seems crazy to have to write this out, but the reason I have to say small-c conservative is because the capital-C Conservative leaders of NSW then let go of controls.
Ever since the fateful decision on15 December 2021, the pandemic has been out of control. Having no controls in place immediately led to the explosion of numbers as well as long queues at PCR testing sites. By the end of the week Rapid Antigen Testing kits were sold out everywhere. Just about every place anybody went to for food pharmaceuticals would lead to a belated alert days later that they might have been exposed to COVID-19. For 8 days the NSW government let the virus have its way with its population.
And the mind boggles as to why people claiming to be conservative in nature and practice would want to do such a thing. The only explanation is that they were not conservative at all, and were in fact libertarians. Perhaps they may even be capital-l Libertarians of the variety we might abhor - for it is hard to recall an election whereby we voted in a Libertarian government. This then, was the moment the nut job far right libertarians of NSW had finally obtained controls to the levers of government. What they did with it was tear a gaping hole in the fabric of society and then pretend this was some kind of state of natural law.
It is deplorable and abhorrent - but it seems to be what we are living with. As such I wish to exercise my libertarian choices right back at them and no longer pay any taxes. What's the point of paying into a government that doesn't look after you in a time of crisis at all?
How My Christmas And New Years Went Down
Thanks to Perrotet and Hazzard-the-Buzzard I was too leery to go watch the one movie I had been waiting for all year, 'Spider-Man: No Way Home'. I still haven't watched it. I hear the cinemas are still packed - which sounds like infection clusters waiting to explode.
At close to midnight on Christmas my better half got a notification that she was in contact with somebody who was positive, only 3 days before. So on early Boxing Day we decided to go get a PCR test even though we were asymptomatic, only to find the queue to the local testing clinic a mile long. Sensibly - I must say - we decided we shouldn't wait for a PCR test when we were likely not going to test positive, which was a call I made based on common sense and the dread of sitting in a car inching towards a PCR test for 3-4 hours. Instead, we opted to go to the local pharmacy to see if they had RAT kits and of course, they were sold out. In the 1 minute I was there to ascertain they didn't have them and everybody was sold out, I would get a notification 3 days later.
Naturally as the regulations would have it, we sat in self isolation monitoring our non-existent symptoms for 7 days, and watched a lot of TV. I think we got to the end of Season 6 of 'Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.', a show we had been watching on and off for some months. We even got through the final 10 episodes of Vikings Season 6 and then New Years came rolling in.
We only staggered out on the 3rd January to get some meat at the butchers - because hey supermarkets have run out. I did manage to get my Moderna booster shot that day, with was a highlight. No side effects, so that was good. On the 4th I visited my sister's place to learn about managing quails. Later that night we got pinged with a notification again for that visit to the butcher. That meant we were still monitoring symptoms until the 10th and really only got out that night. I fed some quails that night.
It's been real, y'all.
'Personal Responsibility' Says The Guy Who Takes None
Amid this turmoil in NSW which has now led to the turmoil of all Australia, we had the personally irresponsible Prime Minister Scomo the Lame-o declare it was all a matter of personal responsibility now. It sounds good, but it would have helped to have made taking that responsibility a feasible thing. As it is, the RAT kits are nowhere to be found and when you can get them, the price gouging is pretty steep.
The way taking personal responsibility has worked out for me is to essentially go back into lockdown on my own account to the extent that is permissible and sustainable. I feel sorry for people who cannot avoid going out to work, and I'm completely basking the luxury of being able to self isolate as much as I can. Yet, to be told by this incompetent Prime Minister that it's all on my responsibility ledger now is a bit rich.
This is the same Prime Minister who ran off to Hawaii during the 2019 bushfire crisis.
I don't see these coalition governments - Federal and NSW - surviving the next election, but I felt the same way in 2019, so I don't know what to think any more. Clearly I live in a country with an idiot electorate. We've got to vote out these jokers.
Speaking of Jokers
This business of Novak Djokovic and his no-vax ways is to put it mildly, a sick joke.
First, he's a champion that not many people have warmed to because he's a Serbian asshole. To make things worse, while he's a great player but he is also an anti-vaxer. The second part sort of rules him out of visiting Australia during the pandemic - because that's the law. Then, he gets some kind of exemption because he's a tennis champ and really, the Australian Open really needs its drawcards right now. But Scomo and Border Force are natural born cunts so he gets pinged like some refugee (hilarious). He goes and stays in the quarantine facility with real refugees while his case is heard in court. The judge is a tennis fan and says he can stay, and that Border Force were out of line. And yet somehow the Minister in charge of border bullies Alex Hawke has the option to send him packing. Will he or won't he? Stay tuned. *gag*
The twists and turns are like a bad soap opera. Nobody except Serbian Anti-vaxers seem to like this guy - but people still want him to hit the ball at the Australian Open. It's a mystery who we're supposed to root for in this miserable story. That, in a nutshell is life during the pandemic in Australia, year 3.