People being forced to abide by arbitrary rules for no reason
We are never going to get the economy running back at full tilt if we must continue to abide by rules that have their origins in the 1930s and have been shown to be wrong, writes Alan Jones.
Opinion
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The noise about opening up the economy can be heard from one end of the country to the other but the rhetoric is far different from the reality.
Victorian businesses are going to be fined if they ask employees to return to work because we must practise “social distancing”.
Yet in their thousands, rugby league fans watched on television as their favourite rugby league players packed down tightly in scrums.
No social distancing there. But the rugby league boss, Peter V’landys is right.
The punter in Struggle Street knows this open for business stuff is a nonsense.
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On Sunday, cafes and restaurants were allowed 10 people; miraculously, yesterday it became 50.
Who makes these numbers up?
The pubs and clubs, some of them as big as Leichhardt Oval, are allowed 50 patrons.
But, tut tut, no bookings of more than 10; and, most importantly, no standing together.
Can any politician or public servant provide a document which justifies these arbitrary numbers and rules?
The last time I went to a swimming pool of repute there were eight lanes. But we are told outdoor pools have been reopened for 10 swimmers, but only one swimmer per lane.
What happens to the other two poor coots who miss out; and no change rooms will be opened. So you get out of the pool wringing wet, in winter, and presumably you can’t change until you get home.
I wrote last week about the “experts” that our politicians ignore.
Professor John Ioannidis, the Professor of Medicine and the Professor of Epidemiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine wrote, “If we had not known about a new virus out there and had not checked individuals with PCR tests, the number of total deaths due to ‘influenza like illness’ would not seem unusual this year. At most, we might have casually noted that flu this season seems to be a bit worse than average. But the media coverage would have been less than for an NBA game between the two most indifferent teams …”
It is time Government started treating us like adults.
We know the risks.
That’s why I have been broadcasting in isolation. I am part of the cohort that is at risk because of my age and my previous conditions of bronchitis, cancer, melanoma, brain tumour – I’ve had the lot.
If people my age aren’t smart enough to manage their own wellbeing, then no propaganda-swallowing politician can help them.
People have had the hell frightened out of them. Another case here, another case somewhere else.
Yet the World Health Organisation has told us from day one, over 98 per cent of the cases are mild.
And, quite frankly, without a vaccine, the more cases in the non-vulnerable cohort, the greater our immunity.
Which politician tells you that?
They have to justify putting the economy into a coma by treating us like schoolchildren with a mind-bending litany of rules producing devastating and massively costly effects which the reputable economic commentator Terry McCrann has described as potentially “cataclysmic”.
A leading restaurateur, Steve, who has run the magnificent and popular Café D’Bar in Coolangatta has stood down 30 of his 40 mainly casual workers. There are “Steves” everywhere – every pub, every club, every restaurant – and we are open of business!
Pull the other leg, it plays Nat King Cole.
Well let’s nail this social distancing nonsense.
The Professor of Global Security and the head of the Biosecurity Program at the Kirby Institute in Australia, Professor Raina McIntyre, is on the record as saying, “The three-to-six foot rule,” (our 1.5 metres is about 5 feet), “is based on a few studies from the 1930s and 1940s which have since been shown to be wrong … and hospital infection control experts continue to believe this rule. It’s like the flat earth theory. Anyone who tries to discuss the actual evidence is shouted down by a chorus of believers.”
We have had children kept away from school, careers jeopardised.
One week they were told they should go to school for one day a week; then, a matter of days later, we are told by politicians that face-to-face education is important, you should all go back to school.
But only 86 per cent of students attended. That didn’t seem to concern the political leaders in NSW, even though the NSW Education Act of 1990 states, “It is the duty of the parent of a child of compulsory school age to cause the child to be enrolled at and to attend a government school or a registered non-government school … Schooling required by this section is referred to in this act as ‘compulsory’ ”.
But apparently in all this confusion, with politicians changing their mind every other day, it is OK for parents to break the law as the brainwashing overtakes them.
We have no hope of “opening up the economy” while this intellectual dishonesty continues.
The bloke whose restaurant seated 15 people, up until the weekend, could take bookings for 10. Terrific. Two thirds capacity.
But the club, or big time restaurant that seats 250 could also take only 10. Four per cent capacity. A recipe for going broke quickly.
As I write, over 200,000 businesses have had mortgage payments deferred to a total of $160 billion.
When the banks call, come September, for the resumption of payments and the payment of deferred moneys, where interest has been capitalised, can some politician provide me with the textbook that tells me how that business can cope?
The talk about opening the economy, until these rubbish rules are removed, is nothing more than an illusion.