Morrison will pay the price for failure on quarantine

Greg Sheridan has done it again, turning a sensible spotlight on the perils of “learning to live with the virus” (“Lockdowns work and we have no alternative”, 15/7). Were it not for the leaky hotel quarantine system, there would have been no lockdowns or Covid deaths here. Britain’s experiment with herd immunity might well give its citizens more freedom to travel, but they will be prey to every new mutation that needs yet another vaccination. “Long Covid” might take its toll on the health of the young.

John Billingsley, Toowoomba, Qld

There is a biblical passage, “Ye shall know them by their fruits”, that the Prime Minister may be familiar with. The source of infection in Australia has consistently been quarantine failure, and each failure has cost us billions of dollars and untold misery. The Commonwealth has had 18 months to set up secure, purpose-built quarantine facilities and has comprehensively failed. What a bitter harvest Scott Morrison is responsible for, and will be known for, right up until the next election.

David Perkins, Reid ACT

While Australian state and federal governments encourage people to get vaccinated against Covid-19 none is encouraging obese people to lose weight.

Having a body mass index in the normal range is probably just as helpful as becoming vaccinated. The data is now in. If you are overweight or obese your chances of going to ICU or dying with Covid-19 increase exponentially with the amount of fat in your body.

When will our governments admit this? We often see images of those in ICU on ventilators who are morbidly obese. Our governments need to address this issue and stop sidestepping it.

Pamela Blake, Pelican Waters, Qld

We should take heart from the latest Gallup Poll data from the US on Covid-19, which shows that mass vaccination and reopening the economy seems to work.

Gallup uses the well-accepted Cantril Ladder of Life Satisfaction which ranges from 0 (worst possible life for me) to 10 (best possible) and where seven-plus is regarded as satisfactory.

Pre-pandemic in September-October 2019, 68 per cent of US adults rated their life satisfaction as seven or higher, and while this fell to 57 per cent at the peak of the pandemic in late April 2020, it had recovered steadily thereafter to 69 per cent by mid-June this year.

The percentage of adults reporting experiencing stress “a lot of the day yesterday” showed a similar pattern: about 45 per cent reported daily stress before the pandemic, 60 per cent at the peak, and falling back to 45 per cent by June. Suicides, other US data show, actually declined slightly.

Children and teenagers were least affected. Parents of children under 18 said only 24 per cent of them were experiencing daily stress at the peak of the pandemic and only 18 per cent in the latest June results. The main problem was boredom – 65 per cent were bored “a lot of the time daily” at the peak, 43 per cent after.

Gallup reports that 93 per cent of adults 65 and over have had at least one dose of vaccine, as have 60 per cent of those aged 18 to 64. The economy has been reopened in all 50 states plus DC. The seasonally warming weather may also have helped.

John Rossiter, Wollongong, NSW

I refer to the photograph on the front page of Thursday’s edition of The Australian (“League firmly Marooned in Sunshine State”, 15/7). Are we supposed to feel sorry for the footballers going off to Queensland and leaving their families?

I have a 92-year-old sister who still cries over a lad who never came back from World War II and I have also sat with my 90-year-old aunt crying over her fiance who never came back from World War I. This, together with babies needing medical help not being allowed into Queensland and people not being able to see dying relatives, makes the whole situation unbelievable.

It seems that in the Australia of today all you need to be able to travel is to be a footballer or a millionaire. I despair at what is happening to the Australia we know and love.

Olive Waldron, Heathmont, Vic

Hats off to your correspondent Greg Sheridan for his timely article in which he provides some (un)common sense in his commentary on our collective response to the Covid-19 pandemic. May the sun shine upon his face.

Alan J. Foulkes, Braddon, ACT