David Penberthy: The brutal truth is that there is one black-caped person waiting for these people

There’s a harsh reality awaiting some South Aussies in 2022. And our shops and pubs deserve every right to kick them all out after we let Covid in, writes David Penberthy.

One of the things about death is that it has a very effective marketing department.

Nothing spurs human beings into action like the prospect of their imminent demise.

The world is filled with happily ageing people who had a sudden heart tremor in their 50s and finally kicked the fags. Or a formerly obese person who took up regular walking and salads when their GP told them they were about to drop dead.

It is for this reason that the high-Covid-19 states of Victoria and NSW are kicking South Australia’s backside when it comes to the uptake of the Covid vaccine.

With case numbers being what they have been in the eastern states, the authorities needed little help convincing people there to drop the delays, abandon the excuses, and roll up their sleeves.

Less so here in SA.

As of Wednesday, in NSW 92.5 per cent of people aged 16 and over had their first Covid vaccine and 82.3 per cent their second.

In Victoria the numbers stood at 89.2 per cent first dosed and 69.3 per cent second dosed.

“Freedom” protesters march through the streets of Adelaide last month. Picture: Emma Brasier

Tassie was third, at 85.1 per cent first dosed and 70 per cent second dosed, and SA fourth, at 77.2 per cent first dosed and 60 per cent second dosed.

Rounding out the list are Western Australia in fifth, which seems to think it is basically its own planet these days, and of course poor old Queensland coming in last, which is probably because that’s where most of Australia’s hillbillies live.

There is a big wake-up call for SA in these numbers when you compare our performance versus that of NSW and Victoria.

The most obvious explanation for the 15 per cent differential between first-dosed New South Welshmen and women and first-dosed South Aussies is that, for the past three months, as numbers have spiralled out of control in Sydney, people have rightly identified the genuine risk of illness as the ICUs fill up with the unvaccinated and the deaths tally up.

The numbers show there is absolutely no argument that the best way to wind up in serious strife in hospital, or to leave it your poor family to organise some bleak funeral on your behalf for a maximum of 10 guests, is to exercise your choice to say no to science, and say no to your own safety, by saying no to vaccines.

Here in SA we have heard a litany of reasons for not getting vaccinated. Setting aside the demented arguments put forward by the full-blown anti-vax brigade about not wanting Bill Gates to control their mind, there have been many people who have been made fearful by the shifting advice early on about AstraZeneca, others who just can’t see the urgency given there’s been few local Covid cases, and those who just can’t be bothered and keep putting it off.

Some people in remote parts of the state and in poorly serviced outer suburbs have had valid complaints about the ease of accessing the vaccine, which the government has gone some way to addressing.

But we are now at a point where all these reasons not to get vaccinated simply have to stop.

A day of reckoning is coming for the waverers in SA.

We are preparing to open our borders. As Police Commissioner Grant Stevens put it so candidly this week, we are basically preparing to let Covid into SA.

We are doing so because life cannot continue like this forever. And we are doing it on the scientific basis that if we do let Covid in, it poses no major threat to people who have been doubly vaccinated.

I have not been a fan of compulsion when it comes to vaccines and would argue that the NSW and Victorian experience shows you don’t actually need it when the stakes of not getting vaccinated are demonstrated so powerfully. But I do believe that businesses have every right to say that, on the basis of the safety of their staff, their other customers and for the greater good, that they will require proof of vaccination for people to access and enjoy their services.

Unvaccinated folks in SA might want to start reflecting on how life is going to look in 2022 if they continue to refuse vaccinations.

Actually it’s not that hard to imagine it. It looks like lockdown.

South Australian Police Commissioner Grant Stevens. Picture: Kelly Barnes

How’s your Monday morning water-cooler chat going to look as an unvaccinated person?

Hey Dave, how was your weekend?

Get up to much?

Eat out anywhere? Go to the footy? See any bands? Go to a film? A play?

You still planning on going to Cairns or Fiji this summer?

No, no, no. To all of the above.

And in light of the bombshell announcement by Coles and Woolworths about mandatory vaccinations, good luck finding a job at all.

If you put the vax debate in a political context, the 20-odd per cent of South Australians are like a minor political party who can’t abide the fact that four out of every five people has voted for somebody else, and still think they should get a say in how life should operate.

Well, 80 per cent of us think life should operate safely and openly.

This is the point we will soon be at. And frankly, it is kind of annoying for those of us who have done the right thing, by not reading crap on Facebook but listening to people who have spent years learning and researching and have a proven track record of keeping people safe.

We are basically about to lay siege to our public-hospital system because a minority of the population is too silly or selfish to do the right thing by their community. And the right thing by themselves.

The brutal truth is that there is one black-caped person waiting for these people, and as I said in the opening paragraph, she has got one hell of a marketing department. It would be a tragedy if anyone in SA were to find out the hard way that these vaccines actually work.