Tim Blair: Jeers for Joker, cheers for one of our own in Covid hypocrisy
In January, Australians pilloried Novak Djokovic for refusing the vaccine – but now we cheer one of our own who competes and wins after testing positive for Covid, writes Tim Blair.
Opinion
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Just seven months ago, Australia faced our gravest Covid crisis of the entire pandemic.
Woke sports reporters (just about all of them, in other words) were infuriated.
Andy Maher wailed: “Australians have been denied for two years, but this bloke – who’s taken extraordinary liberties in the face of the coronavirus – gets his exemption.”
Samantha Lewis called for the Serb to be abused: “Everybody attending the Australian Open has a patriotic duty to boo Djokovic for the entirety of his stay. This is an obscene decision and organisers should be f***ing ashamed of themselves.”
“People will be going to bed right now to get up at 5am to do the right thing to get into testing queues for PCR results they won’t get for six days and will quarantine anyway,” AFL writer Jon Ralph complained.
“How bloody galling to see Novak get an exemption.”
Djokovic, one of the fittest human beings on the planet, didn’t have Covid at the time. He presented no health risk at all.
He’d merely decided not to be vaccinated, and was therefore judged to be in breach of the sacred Pandemic Protocols.
Eventually, following a few days of to-and-fro legal arguments, the Morrison government took action.
Disgracefully, the government threw Djokovic out of the country.
Their reasoning for this was more disgraceful still. Djokovic had to go, then-Immigration Minister Alex Hawke argued, because all of you were too stupid and easily manipulated to cope with an unvaccinated tennis player.
“Given Mr Djokovic’s high profile status and position as a role model in the sporting and broader community, his ongoing presence in Australia may foster similar disregard for the precautionary requirements following receipt of a positive Covid test in Australia,” Hawke declared.
Djokovic’s gigantic influence in Australia explains why all 25 million of us play tennis every weekend.
“In particular, his behaviour may encourage or influence others to emulate his prior conduct and fail to comply with appropriate health measures following a positive test,” Hawke continued, “which itself could lead to the transmission of the disease and serious risk to their health and others.”
At the time, about 95 per cent of Australians aged above 16 were vaccinated. Hawke seemed to believe that Djokovic-hypnotised Australians would seek to somehow drain the vaccinations from their systems.
So we chucked him out.
But last week, only months after the Djokovic drama, another case involving Australia, Covid and international sport ended very differently.
The Australian women’s T20 cricket team won a gold medal in the Commonwealth Games – with a player in the team who not only tested positive for Covid on the morning of the final against India, but also exhibited Covid symptoms.
“We can confirm that cricketer Tahlia McGrath has returned a positive test for Covid-19,” Cricket Australia announced. “McGrath is taking part in today’s final.”
So all-rounder McGrath did exactly that, wearing a mask and sitting away from her teammates while waiting to bat and waving off celebrations after she’d taken a catch, but otherwise performing as usual.
And nobody complained, aside from some Indian players and commentators who were justifiably annoyed by the fact that McGrath’s circumstances were only revealed shortly before the game began.
In fact, many of the same sports wokesters who railed against Djokovic didn’t even mention the game, let alone McGrath’s inclusion.
One Sydney Morning Herald hypocrite, who screamed endlessly about Djokovic, to this point hasn’t written a single word about the Australian.
Impressively, her teammates were delighted that McGrath was cleared to compete and refreshingly realistic about any health risks.
“We were all happy to play, she was happy to play,” bowler Megan Schutt said.
“She feels absolutely fine so I think the positive result was a bit of a shock to her, but that’s Covid isn’t it – we’re all going to live through it.”
Asked to comment about the Australian team celebrating in close company with McGrath after their victory, Schutt was brilliantly dismissive. “Screw it,” she said. “If we get Covid, so be it.”
We needed more of that attitude back in January when we were being told it’s our “patriotic duty” to shame someone because they didn’t want to be vaccinated.
The double standards between then and now are striking, as British commentator Brendan O’Neill summarised on Sky News.
“We had a healthy man who was forbidden from playing in Australia and America and who was thoroughly demonised for breaking the rules, or risking breaking the rules,” he said.
“And then you have this unhealthy woman, in the sense that she has Covid-19, who is allowed to play and was being cheered on.”
That’s about the size of it. Meanwhile, a great many Australians who sided with our patronising then-PM and his ridiculous Immigration Minister over Djokovic are going to have to live with their shame.
Back when it counted, they ran with the Covid panic mob. They joined the moralisers, the scolds, the fearful and the woke.
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