Andrew Bolt: Health fascists have put a leash around our necks

When the state treats individuals like rubbish in the name of a higher purpose, we are jumping into fascism. The virus is not going away so let’s regain our senses before it’s too late.

Now we know how close to fascism we are. Zach Freego spent his 17th birthday on Wednesday in hospital without his mum by his side.

In fact, Zach hasn’t seen his family since he woke up from his coma after a car crash last month.

Why? Because health fascists in Victoria say no. The virus!

“They’re pretty much saying that because he’s in a higher care ward that there’s no visitors whatsoever to the hospital,” said mum Candice.

Note: Zach’s family lives in Shepparton, which hasn’t had a coronavirus infection for eight months. The nearest known infected person is in isolation in Melbourne, 160km away.

The chance of Zach’s family being infected is around zero. The danger from mum visiting Zach, especially if in full protection gear, is around zero.

But she’s banned, and Health Minister Martin Foley backs that call.

No risk, but still banned. No compassion, because of some mystical but irrational Greater Good.

When the state treats individuals like rubbish in the name of a higher purpose, regardless of facts and reason, we are not just on the edge of fascism – health fascism, in this case. We’re jumping right in.

Health Minister Martin Foley has backed a call to ban a mother from seeing her son in hospital due to Covid. David Crosling

Not one Australian has died this year from catching the virus here, yet we’ve been made slaves to an unreasoning and hypochondriacal fear. It’s a tyranny of the timid.

We know we’ve given in to health fascism when American Mark Kilian and his wife are stuck in Sydney quarantine – both vaccinated and tested – because Queensland Health claims it’s too dangerous to let them come see Kilian’s father, just days from death.

We know it’s health fascism when a family in Warrnambool – 250km from the nearest infection – was banned from having more than 10 mourners at the funeral for their eight-year-old son, even out in the open.

We know we’ve given in to health fascism when Facebook banned posts suggesting – correctly – the virus could have escaped from a Chinese lab; when some of our parliaments were last year suspended; when our governments banned protests in the open air; when police harass and threaten anti-ban journalists such as Avi Yemini of Rebel News; and when Victorian police handcuffed a woman in her home, in front of her children, simply for promoting an anti-bans demonstration.

It’s all to protect us, we’re told. But does it? And at what cost?

For the past two weeks, Melburnians were again banned from going outside without a face mask. Yet not one person in Victoria’s latest outbreak had caught the virus in the open air.

Victoria’s deputy chief health officer, Professor Allen Cheng, excused this ban by saying the risk of catching the virus outdoors may be just 5 per cent of the risk indoors, but “there is still a risk”.

Deputy chief health officer Allen Cheng says there is still a risk of catching the virus outdoors. Picture: Sarah Matray

Except even that tiny danger seems massively exaggerated. Cheng was apparently relying on a tiny Japanese study – just 110 infected people – made at the very start of the pandemic.

The data since suggests it’s nonsense. For example, a University of Hong Kong study of more than 7000 cases in China said just two people caught the virus outside, and a massive study in Ireland – more than 230,000 cases – found just one in a thousand sick people were infected outdoors.

To impose face masks outdoors – even away from crowds – is health fascism. It’s health officials covering their own backsides rather than considering the rights and comforts of the public. And weak politicians just nod assent to such stuff while businesses go broke.

We’ve even seen health officials treat Australians as foolish children who need a pointless ban to scare them into line.

In Queensland, the chief medical officer even closed the state’s schools, not to protect anyone but to make them docile. “It’s about the messaging,” she said.

She reportedly agreed that “evidence showed schools were not a high-risk environment for the spread of the virus”, but “closing them down would help people understand the gravity of the situation”.

In South Australia, the chief public health officer shut down Adelaide after just a single infection, in the absurd belief that this essentially airborne virus could be spread through pizza boxes, and two weeks ago warned fans at an AFL game – between players who’d already tested negative – not to touch the football if it was kicked into the crowd.

Such fears are mad. The virus will never disappear, and if we don’t regain our senses the health fascists will never drop the leash we let them put around our necks.