Latest Qld lockdown must be a wake-up call to vaccine hesitant

The latest lockdown in Queensland – the strictest closure in the state so far this year – must serve as a wake-up call to the vaccine hesitant, and jolt us out of any sense of Covid-19 complacency.

Such is the unpredictable nature of Covid-19 that brides woke ready to be married on Saturday afternoon – only to have to suddenly cancel their weddings at 10am.

Families preparing for funerals in coming days discovered they would be restricted to 10 attendees.

And thousands of people have gone into immediate isolation knowing they may have been exposed to the highly infectious Delta strain of the virus.

The urgent lockdown – the strictest closure in Queensland this year – from 4pm on Saturday will jolt any sense of coronavirus complacency that may have crept into the state after the repeated and successful suppression of previous outbreaks.

But it also must serve as a wake-up call to the vaccine hesitant.

Sadly, the threat of lockdowns will remain our reality until vaccination levels reach at least 70 per cent.

While the national cabinet decision to nominate that target is questionable – surely no more lockdowns should occur once every Australian who wants a jab has been offered one – there are two quite basic next steps.

The first is for anyone who is suffering symptoms to get a Covid-19 test and for all people in areas under lockdown to sensibly follow the restrictions, which at this point are scheduled to end on Tuesday.

The second is for anyone who isn’t either already vaccinated or on the waiting list for a vaccine to immediately take action to book their jab.

The chance nature of how this outbreak was first picked up – by an alert nurse who noticed a schoolgirl was sick – demonstrates just how easily it is for the insidious virus to spread quickly and quietly through our community.

The only answer to this pandemic is vaccination.

POOL HEROES THE BOOST WE NEED

If the tradition of the last two Olympics had been repeated at Tokyo, right about now we’d be publishing a post-mortem on where things went so spectacularly wrong for our over-hyped swimmers.

There’d be soul-searching questions: Why couldn’t the Dolphins perform under pressure? Was the high-performance regimen wrong? Were swim stars’ egos out of control? Was the team culture rotten?

Instead, after eight days in the pool the only thing to be analysed is how the swim team of 2021 found the Midas touch and got things so right.

This has been a Games in which Aussie swimmers have exorcised team demons. After 2012, the stench of a failure and a Stilnox party haunted a national team which was expected to dominate. In 2016, Mack Horton and Kyle Chalmers had personal triumphs but Cate Campbell’s 100m freestyle heartbreak personified the missed opportunity of a Games when too many of the team’s stars weren’t at their best when it counted.

To the credit of the sport’s coaches, administrators and especially the swimmers themselves, lessons have been learned and a new generation of pool heroes are etched into the history books.

Some lessons were big: Australia held its trials close to the Games, meaning selected swimmers were in peak condition and endured weeks, not months, of pressure before the Games.

Some were small: In London, Emily Seebohm revealed the distraction of social media may have cost her gold. In Tokyo, Ariarne Titmus deleted social media apps from her phone before competition.

As a result of all the lessons, the 2021 Dolphins have given pandemic-weary Australians a very welcome morale boost.

Responsibility for election comment is taken by Kelvin Healey, corner of Mayne Rd & Campbell St, Bowen Hills, Qld 4006. Printed and published by NEWSQUEENSLAND (ACN 009 661 778). Contact details are available at www.couriermail.com.au/help/contact-us