Originally Posted by
DirectAnywhere
I hope I’m wrong but I disagree with this statement entirely. Scomo has realised he has a problem. His language around the “risk matrix” after national cabinet last Friday, and the appointment of the Secretary of Dept of PM and Cabinet to plot a way forward post vaccination, confirms it. The problem is this. COVID has been demonised in Australia to the point - rightly or wrongly - that the Australian public now demand zero cases. Australians have repeatedly shown a remarkable willingness to comply with whatever has been demanded of them to drive cases (cases, not deaths or hospitalisations) to zero. Election results in QLD and (soon to be, probably) WA will confirm it. It’s the post 9/11 “who do you trust to keep you safe?” environment all over again.
If border restrictions are lifted post vaccination, and infected people introduced in to the broader community, case numbers will increase. People will get sick. Some will go to hospital and some will probably die. Governments will need to change the narrative around COVID so that people are willing to accept some illness and sadly, probably, some deaths.
Are state governments willing to do that? How will they do that? Damned if I know. In the US and UK their populations have become so immune to daily deaths in the thousands that they won’t blink if people are dying in the hundreds. It will be considered a triumph. How would Australians handle perhaps tens of deaths a day?
It’s a dastardly conundrum and one the federal and state governments will need to navigate if we are any chance of ever getting state, let alone international, borders open again.
This ^^
The appetite for risk in this country is so low, that I’m surprised people even get in their cars anymore or cross a busy street.
The generation that have had OHS/WHS/PPE rammed down their throats for years is now calling the shots!