‘Hazing’: Joe Hildebrand on school Covid tests

With state governments introducing regular rapid antigen tests for school students, Joe Hildebrand questions if Covid safety plans have gone too far.

For time immemorial – or at least since the Sixties – parents have worried themselves sick about sending their kids off to the first day of school. Inevitably there are tears, tantrums and all manner of hysterics, and often the kids are just as bad.

Fortunately state governments have now come up with a plan to make this rite of passage far less painful using the ingenious method of creating another one far more painful.

The plan in question is of course a Covid plan and the passage in question is of course the nasal passage, through which a long plastic rod must be inserted before said child can enjoy the benefits of universal education.

This is the brand new 2022 ritual almost all kids will have to go through before starting school this year. In the old days they used to call it “hazing”. These days they call it “safety”.

However, I am still unclear as to what precise public safety benefit swabbing the outer brain of my children is supposed to bring.

A less proud parent might assert “Trust me, there’s nothing there!” but I would never be so honest, nor unkind.

We are all supposed to be living with Covid and be unperturbed by it unless we are sick.

Yet at the same time we are also told that we must javelin the noses of our otherwise healthy children just to reassure society that they are not diseased little monsters.

Frankly, this is offensive. Granted my children are monsters but they are diseased only 50 per cent of the time.

But the biggest bafflement is why kids are being given the creepy, proby rapid antigen tests when there are simple saliva tests that can give equally unreliable results.

I was reminded of when I submitted to a prostate check on live television, only to be informed afterwards that there was a simple blood test that could have sufficed.

Perhaps governments just like to prove they can do to us literally what they have always done to us figuratively.

Joe Hildebrand is host of The Blame Game, 8.30pm Fridays on Sky News Australia

Originally published as ‘Hazing’: Joe Hildebrand on school Covid tests