Andrew Bolt: The jab must knock out lockdowns

We cannot ever again have an Australian city locked down because weak politicians pander to anti-vax conspiracists.

I was vaccinated on Friday. And, the damnedest thing, now a little voice in my ear keeps whispering: “This is Bill Gates. Buy Microsoft.”

No, wait. The thought in my head is actually: Enough! There’s no excuse left for another Melbourne-style lockdown.

This must be the last, no matter how many unvaccinated conspiracy theorists then die, crying: “The virus is a hoax!”

It is not for governments to force these people to take the vaccine. Our governments had one job: to make sure they offered protection to people most likely to be killed by this coronavirus.

And that is now close to done.

That means we cannot ever again have an Australian city locked down because weak politicians pander to conspiracists, as well as the truculent and timid, imposing restrictions now as crazy as many of the emails I’m getting.

One email yesterday decried the “fake pandemic known as ‘COVID-19’,” claiming there’s no “proof that SARS-CoV-2 … actually exists”.

Another insisted the vaccination program was a fiendish scheme promoted by Bill Gates, apparently to implant a tracking microchip.

Several over the weekend informed me that Nobel prizewinner Luc Montagnier said: “There is no hope and no possible treatment for those who have been vaccinated already. We must be prepared to incinerate the bodies.” (He hadn’t.)

Others insist there’s a conspiracy to ignore all the deaths from the vaccine. One yesterday claimed 382 people died in Britain from the Pfizer vaccine alone.

More than four million Australians have now had at least one of their two vaccine injections. Picture: David Caird

(In fact, these are notifications of all deaths since a vaccine, not necessarily from it. The same register also notes 781 cases of herpes contracted since the vaccination, obviously not from it.)

Of course, Australians who aren’t wild-eyed nutty also worry that the vaccines have side-effects, and figure there’s no reason to take them now when our borders are closed and no one is dying. One survey estimated a third of us would rather wait.

Fine. If you don’t want the vaccine, your choice.

But the rest of us should no longer pay for your choice by suffering absurd bans and restrictions. It’s time to end the lockdowns, and make the anti-vax conspiracists and the vaccine-timid take responsibility if they get sick.

That’s because the Morrison Government and the states have – belatedly – almost done all that could be reasonably expected to save us from actually dying.

Yes, they’ve still failed to build and run proper quarantine facilities. Yes, they were too slow to secure and distribute vaccines. Yes, the idiotic Victorian Government still doesn’t insist all aged care staff be vaccinated.

But none of those failures are an excuse to keep locking down our cities.

From the start of this pandemic, it was clear our strategy should be to protect those most likely to die, but then let the rest of us go about our business.

That day is now very close.

More than four million Australians have now had at least one of their two vaccine injections. Crucially, most are our old and frail, including 350,000 people in aged care homes and disability centres.

We cannot ever again have an Australian city locked down. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

We have 335,000 people who live in aged care. And that’s exactly where most Australians have died of this coronavirus – 678 of our 910 dead. Most of our dead around the country have been aged over 80, and only 20 under 60 – usually with other health conditions.

Add the other ways we now protect the aged and frail: More face masks and restrictions in aged care homes and hospitals, fewer staff moving between facilities.

So it’s not surprising that we’ve stopped the dying. What we haven’t stopped is people getting infected – almost all younger people very unlikely to die.

Even now, with 49 active cases in Victoria that we know of, just one is in intensive care. Is it really the government’s job to stop us from getting the sniffles? To stop every single person from getting the flu, which also kills?

True, there’s no guarantee no one will die if we end the lockdowns or start to open our international border. Nor can we guarantee no deaths when we smash people’s businesses and lock them in their lonely homes.

But if we’ve protected those most likely to be killed, why shut down Melbourne ever again? Or Brisbane? Perth? Adelaide?

That’s leaving aside the argument that lockdowns rarely work. That’s ignoring the fact that Victoria’s contact tracing fails so often.

Enough. We’re now protecting those most likely to die. Why are governments now such slaves to the fears and fantasies of those who aren’t?