All quiet on the Delta front as celeb ‘experts’ go MIA

If there is one bright spot to the Delta outbreaks, it is that we are no longer taking advice from celebrities who think they are epidemiologists, writes James Morrow.

If there is one bright spot to the current Delta outbreaks in Queensland and Victoria, it is that we are no longer taking advice from celebrities who think they are epidemiologists – or epidemiologists who think they are celebrities.

The Project’s Lisa Wilkinson is not the only prominent would-be unofficial chief health officer to suddenly lose her voice on Covid.

Remember that time she chided NSW, saying: “Victoria keeps proving every time that the minute you get an outbreak there you stamp on it & you get back to normal life”?

Or the time she called on Gladys Berejiklian to step down, saying: “She’s doing nothing, the soft lockdown continues, and we’re all scratching our heads trying to work out if she’s not going to do anything more — why is she continuing with this same rhetoric?”

Lisa Wilkinson called on Gladys Berejiklian to step down because her lockdown was too soft. Picture: Channel 10

Wilkinson has been silent now that Victoria is posting 50 per cent more cases per day than NSW – and that Queensland’s Labor government is desperate to keep cases low before Sunday’s Grand Final.

Another celebrity critic Melburnian Magda Szubanski tweeted that NSW was playing “Russian roulette with a ­mutating virus”.

Szubanski, who starred in a Victorian government lockdown ad, has said little since Delta arrived in her hometown.

Magda Szubanski tweeted that NSW was playing “Russian roulette with a ­mutating virus”. Picture: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

ABC's Dr Norman Swan said the NSW government should “so early and hard” with a lockdown. Picture: Janie Barrett

ABC presenter Julia Zemiro crowed after Melbourne emerged from lockdown 5.0 that Victoria gave “Hope for us in NSW to look to,” while author Kerri Sackville begged on Twitter for Dan Andrews to come take over in Macquarie Street, saying, “we need you.”

Author Kerri Sackville begged on Twitter for Dan Andrews to take over NSW parliament. Picture: Adam Yip / Manly Daily

And of course the ABC’s favourite paediatrician turned presenter Norman Swan was out there at the start of Sydney’s current Delta outbreak saying, “What is the NSW Govt waiting for?? Every day they wait adds up to seven on the lockdown. Need greater Sydney locked down now. Go in early and hard. That’s the rule they’ve broken.”

Well, yes, that worked so well in Victoria. Yet oddly, with Queensland now on the boil Swan and Co are a lot more circumspect in demanding that Annastacia Palaszczuk drop the hammer – at least until the Grand Final wraps up.