Ten of Australia’s dumbest Covid moments
Surviving a global pandemic has been fraught with highs and lows, and plenty of moments have left us perplexed. Here’s a collection of times we were left scratching our heads.
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Surviving a global pandemic has been fraught with highs and lows, but there’s also been plenty of moments where the community has been left scratching their heads.
Making choices on behalf of society during a global pandemic isn’t easy, but some decisions by Australian authorities have left a bit to be desired.
Everyday Aussies were left questioning it all as our state leaders, health officials and public figures provided a variety of advice which conflicted as often as it conflated.
Here’s a list of Australia’s dumbest moments during the pandemic so far- let us know if we’ve missed any in the comments below.
SA’S PIZZA SHOP SHUTDOWN
A lie from a pizza shop worker saw South Australian authorities slam the entire state into lockdown in November 2020.
The six-day lockdown was sparked after SA officials found a man had tested positive after picking up a pizza from Woodville Pizza Bar, sparking fears of a new highly contagious variant.
However it was later discovered the man had lied - he was actually a worker at the pizza shop and had caught the virus from another infected employee.
Premier Stephen Marshall said after the discovery: “To say I am fuming is an understatement … we are absolutely livid with the actions of this individual and we will be looking very carefully at what consequences there are going to be.”
DR CHANT’S BRUSH WITH CONSPIRACY THEORISTS
NSW’s Chief Health Officer found herself thrown into the conspiracy theorist realm after a throwaway phrase she used went viral.
In a press conference last September, Dr Chant spoke about how contact tracing would be handled as the world learnt to live with Covid, referring to the situation as the “new world order”.
The phrase is popular among QAnon conspiracy theorists to describe social upheaval and a long-held conspiracy theory that the world is run by dark forces like the Illuminati or Freemasons.
Anti-government supporters seized on Dr Chant’s comment and the clip saw millions of views and shares.
ABC SHUTS DOWN COVID LAB THEORY LEAK
While the true origins of Covid-19 have long been debated - and are so far inconclusive - two key theories are that it was either created in a lab or it was leaked from a lab which was studying existing animal viruses.
But on ABC’s MediaWatch program host Paul Barry dismissed talk that a lab leak had anything to do with the origins of the virus.
When journalist Sharri Markson published a lengthy investigation of the theory, including details from a secret intelligence dossier, Barry questioned the plausibility of such a theory and suggested the report was “pushing (a) White House line”.
Australian and American former spy chiefs have also since lent further credit to the lab leak theory, but MediaWatch is yet to admit it’s anything more than a “conspiracy theory”.
SA HEALTH OFFICIAL’S BIZARRE FOOTBALL WARNING
South Australia’s Chief Health Officer gave AFL fans at Adelaide Oval a strange piece of advice in June 2021 ahead of a highly anticipated Crows v Pies game.
Having controversially granted Collingwood an exemption to enter the state from Covid-ravaged Melbourne, Dr Nicola Spurrier warned spectators “(if) the ball comes towards you, my advice to you is to duck and do not touch that ball”.
Following a bit of light mockery from the Australian public and headshaking from fellow health experts, she claimed the comments were made in jest – but doubled down in the same breath.
“Whenever you touch an object … touched by I don’t know how many very sweaty men on a football field, sanitise your hands afterwards.”
PREMIER MARK MCGOWAN’S WAXIT
It’s been over 600 days and counting since West Australian Premier Mark McGowan shut his state off from the rest of the country, introducing a hard border.
While WA citizens have been able to go about their lives as normal, with only a handful of days in lockdown, the premier has come under increased scrutiny from politicians, health experts and heartbroken families separated by the border as vaccination levels rise.
Plans for interstate family reunions or travel to Australia’s westernmost regions have been repetitively foiled by Mr McGowan’s shifting of the goalposts, moving WA’s reopening date several times as new outbreaks emerged in neighbouring states.
The two-year-long border closure has only increased resentment between the east and west coasts, and reignited an age-old debate – should Western Australia secede from the rest of the country and become an autonomous state?
A ‘WAxit’ poll conducted in 2020 seems to suggest it’s not an entirely crazy notion – more than one in four Western Australians responded ‘yes’.
STOCKING STUFFERS OF THE COVID KIND
Nowhere is the imperfect science of public health recommendations so clearly laid out than in new research claiming wearing ladies’ stockings around your face is the best way to make the most of your mask.
In an attempt to find out which everyday ‘life hack’ yielded the greatest protection from Covid, University of Cambridge researchers stuffed the gaps of regular surgical face masks with gauze, tied the ear loops together, and sealed the sides with cloth tape.
Wrapping pantyhose around the bottom half of the face on top of a mask was deemed the most effective hack, but researchers conceded it was “unlikely to be tolerated for extended periods of time”.
DR YOUNG’S ASTRAZENECA JAB FEAR MONGERING
The ‘vaccine hesitant’ hardly need encouragement to stoke their fear of Covid vaccines, but then-Queensland Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young’s comments about the AstraZeneca jab added a great deal of fuel to the fire.
In June 2021, Dr Young cautioned against young people taking the AZ jab, stating “I don’t want an 18-year-old in Queensland dying from a clotting illness who, if they got Covid, probably wouldn’t die.”
“Wouldn’t it be terrible that our first 18-year-old in Queensland who dies related to this pandemic died because of the vaccine?”
Despite blood clotting being a rare side effect of the vaccine, in June Queensland’s over 18 double-dose vaccination rate lagged the rest of the east coast at around 24 per cent.
Dr Young’s statements were blasted by doctors, immunologists and fellow health bureaucrats alike as “inappropriate”, “bad advice (that) puts people at risk”.
QUEENSLAND HEALTH’S INCOMPASSIONATE TRAVEL SAGA
In further pandemic controversy out of the Sunshine state, Queensland’s five-month-long hard border with NSW in 2021 produced some of the most heartbreaking stories of family separations.
Perhaps most poignant was the plight of toddler Memphis Francis, an immunocompromised three-year-old unable to return home to his parents from his grandparents’ cattle station south of Griffith despite repeated applications.
Health officials even suggested the toddler fly from Covid-infected Sydney and undergo 14 days of hotel quarantine upon arrival.
After two months, Memphis and mum Dominique were finally reunited, but the family weren’t alone in their border calamity.
Queensland Health authorities also turned their noses up to dozens of others, including an offer from Angel Flight to return sick four-month-old Rocka and his parents Jessie and Brad to their remote QLD property.
Instead Rocka, who suffers from Spinal Muscular Atrophy, was forced to quarantine in a Brisbane hospital with his mum.
NSW DROPS DAILY UPDATES AS CASES SOAR INTO THE THOUSANDS
Then-premier Gladys Berejiklian’s 11am press conferences became a familiar daily occurrence for Sydneysiders enduring their longest lockdown, sparked in June 2021 by the spread of the highly infectious Delta variant.
However, abruptly and with seemingly little rationale, the daily updates became presentations “on a needs basis” in mid-September, while Covid cases were still soaring.
“I will turn up when I need to,” the Premier declared.
“What we need to do is all of us have to start accepting that we need to live with Covid.”
Berejiklian’s decision to update the public less regularly was scrutinised by reporters and Victoria’s Health Minister, who described daily updates as a crucial communication tool in a public health crisis.
It was only a few weeks later that Gladys called her last press conference - to step down as the Premier of NSW amid an ICAC corruption inquiry.
NSW BANS AND THEN UN-BANS CEMETERY VISITS
The NSW government was dead serious about controlling the spread of Delta, going so far as to ban visits to gravesites – or so at least one Sydney cemetery was led to believe.
During the 2021 lockdown small funerals of up to 10 attendees were permitted, however grieving Sydneysiders reported being turned away from the loved ones’ graves at Rookwood Cemetery.
The cemetery had locked its gates and even hired security guards to keep people out, under orders from NSW Police.
After public outcry, NSW Health confirmed visiting the grave of someone recently deceased, or on a significant date like the anniversary of a death, fell within the “compassionate” reasons to leave home and that cemeteries were not required to close under the public health orders.
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