While most Australian states and territories – and New Zealand across the ditch – are doing quite well against the Covid Delta variant, New South Wales is performing so poorly critics are wondering if Australia’s prime gateway has lost the battle, lost the will or lost the plot.
The situation varies and, who knows, NSW may suddenly turn it around. Vaccines are rolling out and the more vaccination the better. At the moment, however, when you look at the figures for Australian states and territories, and for New Zealand, it’s easy to see which state has dropped the ball.
Here are the numbers, as of yesterday, 31 August 2021:
QLD. Number of new cases of Covid. 0
SA. Number of new cases of Covid. 0
WA. Number of new cases of Covid. 0
NT. Number of new cases of Covid. 0
TAS. Number of new cases of Covid. 0
ACT. Number of new cases of Covid. 13
VIC. Number of new cases of Covid. 76
NSW. Number of new cases of Covid. 1164
New Zealand. Number of new cases of Covid. 49
It’s worth noting that New Zealand has managed to actually reduce the number of new Covid cases in the community for each of the past few days, even though it is battling the highly infectious Delta variety. New Zealand is sticking with its zero-Covid strategy – keep the virus out until the population is more fully vaccinated – which has wide popular support.
New Zealand had 49 new cases yesterday (Tuesday). The day before it had 55, the day before that, 83. New Zealand throws everything it has into immediate hard lockdowns, the only accepted way to halt an outbreak.
Asked last week what she would say to people who questioned the need for a level 4 lockdown (the maximum possible), New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern responded with one word: “Australia.”
“We’ve seen the dire consequences of taking too long to act in other countries, not least our neighbours,” she added.
Ardern didn’t specify any Australian state, but as hard lockdown continues in New Zealand, a quip is circulating there: “Better safe than Sydney!”
Below: New Zealand battles the August Delta outbreak
So what on earth is happening in NSW, which is fighting a far worse outbreak? An extraordinary change of rhetoric is evident over the past few weeks. Here are two news stories (with links to the originals in the headlines), less than a month apart.
9 July 2021: NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and PM Scott Morrison dismiss ‘learning to live with COVID-19’ idea
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has joined Prime Minister Scott Morrison in slamming reports the NSW Government was contemplating “living with the Delta variant” as an alternative to lockdown.
Meeting in Auckland, June 2021. A reminder of life without distancing and masks!
6 August 2021: Premier says NSW must learn to live with COVID
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the state must learn to live with Covid-19 as the number of people in hospital with the virus doubled …
Quite a change there!
Rules and regulations for Sydney and the rest of NSW shift so often, it is hard to keep track. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has said that NSW imposed the strictest lockdown possible, but this claim has been exposed as false by an independent ABC fact-check.
Speaking of the Delta variant, a leading expert on Covid told the Sydney Morning Herald last weekend: “Every other state and territory undertook the accepted strategy, which was go hardest immediately and then ease off. NSW went the exact opposite.”
We can now see the result.
At the moment, NSW has the worst of both worlds. It has lockdown, which varies between suburbs and local government areas, fraught with complex, ever-changing rules. That is driving many residents nearly crazy. At the same time, it has a Premier who says the Delta variant makes a zero-Covid target “completely unrealistic”, so all states and territories must eventually learn to live with Covid.
NSW has seen 21,208 locally acquired cases reported since 16 June 2021, when the first case in this outbreak was reported. Currently, 871 Covid-19 cases are in hospital in the state, with 143 people in intensive care, including 58 who have been placed on ventilators.
Berejiklian has also said: “We anticipate that the worst month, the worst time for our intensive care unit, will be in October.”
Living with Covid is a strange concept. There was never any enthusiasm for living with typhus, polio, cholera, typhoid, diphtheria or the Black Death when those diseases were doing the rounds. Nobody said: “Let’s learn to live with typhoid!” Thankfully, vaccines sent many of those plagues packing.
Back to today, why would Queensland, Western Australia or Tasmania (which have no Covid) want to open up their borders to NSW, which is in the grip of a major Covid outbreak and where the NSW Premier says worse is to come?
Covid is continually mutating and what’s next on the menu is anyone’s guess. It’s vital to get vaccinated, which doesn’t come with a 100% guarantee, but certainly helps.
Before embracing “living with the virus” too closely, however, here’s what living with the virus is like in two major countries.
UK, data for Monday, 30 August 2021, just one day. New cases reported: 26,476. Patients admitted to hospital: 969. Deaths: 48.
USA, data for Monday, 30 August 2021, just one day. New cases reported: 119,642. Patients admitted to hospital: unknown. Deaths: 569.
Written by Peter Needham
Peter, How do you negotiate with a terrorist who’s got a bomb strapped to his or her waist? Sydney ‘freedom fighters’ boastfully took to the streets without safe distancing, and without masks to protect their freedom to spread Convid19 when they went back to work, or into the local shops ‘at home’.The numbers are shocking… I watched the news reports of a fellow, (with camera footage), a known Covid carrier here in NSW which police have been trying to track as he knowingly exposing himself to others as an exercise in his civil liberties? Anywhere else we might see that as a War Crime?