Covid-19 has come to Byron Bay. Take three drops of Wolf’s bane and five of essence of Monk’s hood administered under the tongue at the rise of the next new moon. Stat.
Byron is routinely mocked over the variety of lifestyle choices on offer. To be honest, it should. The Byron Shire has the lowest rate of childhood immunisation in New South Wales with almost one in three (29.7 per cent) children not fully immunised by the age of five. A half an hour’s drive south in Ballina Shire, only 5.6 per cent of children under the age of five are not fully immunised. Back of Bourke, in the state’s remote west, only one in 50 children is not fully immunised by the age of five. The state average is one in 20 or five per cent.
Byron has had measles outbreaks and rates of whooping cough in children that far exceed any state or national experience. Children are vulnerable to infectious disease. The suffering they undergo is entirely preventable.
Those damning statistics speak of the demographics of the anti-vax movement. Low childhood immunisation rates are not driven by poverty; economic or intellectual. It is a middle class, Green-Left obsession. In the US, it is best illustrated by the axiom that an anti-vaxxer is more likely to drive a Prius than a pick-up.
The lockdown of Byron is not the residents’ fault, of course, although it is one of the most vulnerable areas in the country to a Covid breakout. The virus has moved into the Byron Shire as a result of a Sydney based traveller who wandered around Byron and its environs while infectious.
Other media organisations have named the 52-year-old man, but I won’t. The naming and shaming business is dangerous because it deters people from reporting.
There is at least some evidence that the man with his two teenage children was acting lawfully. It has been reported he had received an exemption to travel to inspect real estate in Byron.
Welcome to Premier Berejiklian’s ring of aluminium, a lockdown that permits people to leave the greater Sydney area and wander around in other people’s homes in regional New South Wales.
By the way, the current lockdown laws in greater Sydney also permit real estate agents to conduct inspections of rental properties. If you rent, there is at least a prospect that landlords and agents will insist on conducting in person inspections on the premises. They are legally entitled to do so up to four times a year. Are these agents obliged to be vaccinated? Are there any requirements on them to enter the premises wearing a mask? Social distancing? Even splashing on a bit of hand sanitiser? Nope.
Now we have Byron Shire, Richmond Valley, Lismore and Ballina local government areas in lockdown. The Hunter and upper Hunter region is also in a one-week lockdown. The local government areas impacted are Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Maitland, Port Stephens, Cessnock, Dungog, Singleton and Muswellbrook. The Hunter lockdown was due to be lifted on Thursday, but Premier Berejiklian indicated it will almost certainly be extended. There is also a one-week lockdown in place in Armidale and Tamworth.
In a sense it was only a matter of time before regional New South Wales was at risk.
That’s not to cheer on the ring of steel almost fetishistically demanded by Victorian Premier Dan Andrews. The talk of heavy metal lockdowns cannot work in Sydney without causing great hardship across the country. Sydney is not Melbourne and the idea of police roadblocks and routine inspections of vehicles along major arterial roads out of Sydney would cause immense supply chain delays of basic foodstuffs across the country. Sure, Australia would be right for toilet paper, much of which is manufactured and distributed in Victoria but just about any other basic foodstuff and household item you can think of comes either from or through Sydney.
The nation’s Sheffield Shield competition of who can lockdown hardest with Melburnians screeching at Sydneysiders and vice versa over social media has been a desultory exercise.
What is missing in New South Wales is clear and precise communication of what is and what is not out. What is missing is a failure to close obvious loopholes that can and has spread Covid-19 into areas like Byron that are wide open to dangerous outbreaks not simply because Byron has some dismal opinions on vaccination but because there has been a limited supply of vaccines.
The Berejiklian government is beset with factional pressures. There are MPs who want to make a name for themselves, like the Liberal member for Mulgoa, Tanya Davies, until this week an all but anonymous member of the government.
In a series of fiery email exchanges with Berejiklian’s deputy, Nationals leader, John Barilaro, Davies insisted she would seek leave to move a private member’s bill which would have the intention of blocking the government’s instructions to construction workers to continue work only in the event of vaccination or submitting to Covid-19 testing. The effect of Davies’ intervention would be to further widen an already gaping loophole.
Davies was beaten on the numbers in the party room but a look at her Facebook page on Wednesday, shows her deep in an orgy of congratulation with the sorts of people who organised the anti-lockdown protest in the CBD more than two weeks ago.
By any measure, the Berejiklian government has become dysfunctional. State governments, especially in New South Wales, often are but during a pandemic it’s an astonishingly high risk exercise.
No one talks about the Berejiklian government being the gold standard of pandemic management anymore. For those in greater Sydney and in regional New South Wales, all we can do is wait it out and hope that vaccination rates hit safe thresholds sooner rather than later. It’s a white knuckle ride that’s due to run for months, not weeks.
In Byron, it might pay to double up that dose of Wolf’s bane.
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