After some widespread anti-lockdown protests, Australia is now announcing that they are going to end their “covid zero” policy, which is something that Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said is “not sustainable” as the Delta variant continues to spread in the nation.
Australia has adopted some of the strictest coronavirus lockdown policies in the world as they attempt to eradicate the coronavirus within their borders. Major Australian cities such as Melbourne, Sydney, and the capital Canberra, had all been placed under a lockdown policy that had been characterized by the spin doctors as “wildly successful” for keeping the COVID-19 deaths under a thousand since the beginning of the pandemic. However, this came at the cost of restricting personal liberties, closing their borders, and preventing 30,000 Australia citizens who had traveled abroad from returning home.
However, now that we are encountering the advent of the more contagious Delta variant, the Australian government has been forced to change its policy simply due to the fact that this “covid zero” strategy is simply not sustainable. Instead, the prime minister says that the coronavirus lockdowns are going to end once 80% of adults in the nation are vaccinated against COVID-19, according to a report in the Economist on Saturday. Australia is only going to impose restrictions if a hospital is threatening to approach full capacity.
In the beginning stages, Australia sought to control the contagion known as the Delta variant by implementing what they called “circuit breakers”, which is a policy that would lock down any area of the country where they had detected a positive COVID-19 spread “at the beginning.”
In an op-ed published on August 23rd, Morrison noted that the measures needed to make “covid zero” come to fruition in Australia were actually “not a sustainable way to live in this country.”
“Once you get to 70% of your eligible population being vaccinated, and 80% … the plan sets out we have to move forward,” the prime minister explained in his video address. “Because if not at 70% and 80%, then when? Then when? This cannot go on forever, this is not a sustainable way to live in this country.”
Now, the challenge for Australia is to increase the amount of people who are vaccinated. There are still plenty of bureaucrats in the country who believe that “covid zero” was a success due to the low number of infections and deaths that had been reported in the country. Australia continues to lag behind the United States and Europe in vaccinations, with only 27.4% of the country being fully vaccinated.
However, the country still remains in lockdown. Australia reported that they have 1,126 new coronavirus infections, mostly in New South Wales, where the Delta variant is on the prowl.