National panic attack came at a massive price

We’ll look back with a mixture of horror and bewilderment that we crippled society with lockdowns instead of learning to live with this virus.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics put out some crucial data this week that should shame every alarmist bureaucrat, politician and media blowhard who championed lockdowns, school closures and mandates.

Of the 2639 deaths from or with Covid-19 in Australia, up until January 31, 2022, the great majority had serious pre-existing issues, on average three pre-existing conditions. Cancer, dementia and chronic cardiac conditions were among the most common pre-existing conditions.

The median age of death for those who died from Covid-19 was 83.7 years; higher than the average life expectancy.

For women the median age of Covid-19 deaths was 86 and just over 81 years for men.

In the same 22-month period Australia had around 100,000 cancer deaths and the country records around 160,000 deaths per annum.

It’s hard not to conclude that we needlessly crippled our societies, debased our hard fought for liberties and caused untold damage to children, not to mention accumulating enormous debt and destroying countless lives and livelihoods.

The only consolation, if you can call it that, is that we were not alone.

With a few notable exceptions, most of the first world blindly followed the Chinese Communist Party in adopting destructive lockdowns to “eradicate” a virus that was never going to be eradicated.

In the years to come we will look back at this period with a mixture of horror and bewilderment, wondering how so many countries managed to abandon their advanced pandemic plans and instead embraced lockdowns.

The ABS data also showed that Victoria has recorded significantly more deaths than any other state.

Indeed, Victoria had more Covid-19 deaths than all the other states and territories combined despite inflicting six lockdowns – including the world’s longest – on more than five million people in Greater Melbourne.

There must be a reckoning for those who imposed and championed these draconian policies, though these days even the most ardent Covid-zero fanatic accepts that we must learn to live with the virus.

WHERE WAS ‘PRACTICAL’ DAN WHEN PLAYGROUNDS WERE CLOSED?

After close to two years of hysteria and overreach Premier Dan Andrews is beginning to comprehend reality.

This week we’ve had two backflips from Dear leader. For weeks Premier Andrews has been adamant that in “Victoria’s vaccinated economy” you would have to have three jabs to be considered fully vaccinated.

When Scott Morrison announced Australia’s borders would reopen on February 21, Premier Andrews was quick to announce that only boosted tourists would be welcome at Victoria’s retailers, hotels and restaurants, a move that demoralised the state’s decimated tourism industry.

The polling on those positions must’ve been pretty grim because on Wednesday Mr Andrews walked back from his triple vax mandate.

“There comes a point where things become kind of impractical and you’ve got so many different systems operating at once that it doesn’t really work,” he said.

Suddenly the Premier cares about practicality.

He didn’t care about what’s practical when he locked down the state six times, enforced curfews, closed playgrounds, banned elective surgery and masked people indoors and outdoors.

Practicality, or lack thereof, wasn’t a concern when he implemented policies that destroyed small and medium-size enterprises.

There’s been nothing practical, or proportionate, about the crippling restrictions we’ve suffered in this state. But now that people are finally waking up to the Covid reality, he is relaxing some of the state’s harsh rules including for the unvaccinated.

Victoria, along with NSW, will reduce the number of days of quarantine required for unvaccinated international arrivals.

“The 14-day hotel quarantine period for international visitors and aircrew who aren’t fully vaccinated or medically exempt will reduce to seven days,” Andrews announced on Thursday.

But while NSW is ditching the dreaded, and largely useless, indoor mask mandate on February 25, the Victorian government is refusing to budge. The calls of infectious disease experts for mask mandates to be immediately lifted for schoolchildren has again fallen on deaf ears.

However, the Premier did perform another backflip after the strong reaction to the Herald Sun’s front-page story revealing that parents who were not boosted were set to be banned from their children’s school facilities and events from mid-March.

The backlash to the news must’ve been particularly swift and fierce given the speed with which the policy was junked.

It took days to have the IVF ban reversed, and even longer to have the playground ban lifted but the triple-jab school requirement was gone within hours.

If you believe the Premier, the whole thing was a massive misunderstanding but there is substantial evidence to the contrary.

It’s time for the Premier to release the state from the remaining illogical and disruptive restrictions.