Christopher Pyne: We should be generous enough to acknowledge Covid is not an easy hand of cards to play

Neither the Premier or PM were bitten by a bat or a pangolin in a wet market, nor played any part in a Wuhan virus lab (if you buy that theory), writes Christopher Pyne.

Let’s face it, 2021 has been a horror year.

I saw a video of a girl hurdling recently and basically knocking over every hurdle, stumbling, falling over, getting up, knocking over the next one and stumbling to the finish line.

That’s how I feel getting to the end of this crazy year. We will make it, but we aren’t exactly in good shape.

I doubt I am the only person who feels that way.

Didn’t we think 2021 was going to be better than 2020? Well, it hasn’t been.

People are so grumpy.

More than 80 per cent of Australians aged 16 and over are vaccinated. The unvaccinated can take their own risks and if they get sicker than the vaccinated, well that’s their lookout.

They have made their choice.

It’s never too late to get vaccinated, so go out and do it.

For me, I’m looking forward to my booster shot. I can’t get it fast enough.

I took my daughter to a medical clinic the other day to get her treated for tonsillitis. We weren’t allowed in until we could show a negative Covid test from the previous 72 hours.

We were expected to go away, get a Covid test, wait up to a day for the result and then come back. We gave up and she devoured Berocca instead. That seemed to do the trick.

I’d like rapid antigen testing kits for Christmas and home testing kits, too. The obsession with testing everyone means testing must be made easy.

SA Health vaccinator Xuan gives paramedic Sharon Hennessy a Covid booster vaccine at Wayville Vaccination Clinic. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Brenton Edwards

The people get that all this inconvenience is in the best interests of themselves, the country and the state.

We don’t want the ICUs of our hospitals filled with our fellow Australians gasping for breath on a ventilator machine.

But that doesn’t mean we have to like the fact that we are in this position. It’s intensely annoying.

We are free to be annoyed, but it doesn’t change anything, I grant you that. So we have to focus on the good things within our orbit.

Christmas has come and gone. Boxing Day recovery has happened. Many Australians are heading to the sand and the sea to do nothing much for a couple of weeks if they can.

New Year’s Eve is around the corner.

This is a time for kicking back with friends and family.

Thank goodness, the borders were open for Christmas, so those of our family and friends who live interstate could join us.

The weather has been kind. La Nina has made sure that the garden is relatively green and likely to stay so for longer than usual.

Despite the ever present reporting by the media of the pandemic as though we are in the grip of a medieval affliction of plague proportions that is going to eviscerate the human race, relatively speaking, Australia and South Australia has a better record on cases, deaths and vaccination rates than almost any other place in the world.

Aussie fan Oliver Foot 14 enjoying the Boxing Day Test up high in the MCG’s Southern Stand. Picture: David Caird

The Australian Test Cricket team is beating the Poms, which is as it should be.

Our economy continues to surprise by growing healthily and unemployment is at record lows.

There are more South Australians working today than there were before the pandemic.

Our unemployment rate is the same as the national rate, which has not been achieved often in the last few decades.

The most recently published economic growth figures had South Australia recording an astonishing 3.9 per cent figure, the highest in the nation, for what must be the first time in recent history.

There are cranes on the Adelaide skyline. Domestic travellers are visiting our wineries, restaurants, hotels, motels and caravan parks. Our beaches, national parks and coastline are some of the best places to holiday on the planet.

Most important of all, who would want to live anywhere else?

Adelaide is the most liveable city in the nation and in a nation that is the best place in the world. That’s pretty lucky.

SA Senator Simon Birmingham, Premier Steven Marshall and Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dean Martin

As we motor to the end of the year, let’s count our blessings which are many.

Finally, spare a thought for the Prime Minister and the Premier.

As a former politician myself you might feel that I’m conflicted in standing up for my old profession, but neither Scott Morrison nor Steven Marshall were bitten by a bat, rat or a pangolin in a wet market, nor played any part in testing viruses in a laboratory in Wuhan (if you believe that theory).

They are just trying to deal with the fallout as best they can in difficult circumstances.

No doubt you will say, “Well that’s their job”, and it is, but in everyone’s work there are easier days and more difficult days, and we should be generous enough to acknowledge Covid is not an easy hand of cards to play.

I’m looking forward to 2022.

It’s got to be better than 2020 and 2021. Surely?