Australia Radically Changes COVID Policy As Omicron Sweeps Through Nation

[mystery-ak]

Australia Radically Changes COVID Policy As Omicron Sweeps Through Nation
Matt Vespa

Posted: Jan 23, 2022 6:00 AM

Australia has rightfully been criticized for its ‘COVID zero’ policy. It’s locked down the country. The borders were closed, and concentration-like camps were built. All of this to contain a virus with a 99-plus percent survival rate. The nation is now super-vaccinated as well, with every state having an 80 percent rate among those who are 16 years of age or older. That was the ticket to loosening the regulations. Still, ‘Australia has fallen’ still manages to make it into the trending topics on social media, with various clips showing how this nation has descended rapidly into authoritarianism to contain COVID. Number one-ranked tennis star Novak Djokovic was deported when he showed up to potentially win his 10th Australian Open. If you didn’t know any better, you’d thought this man had committed serial murders while in the land down under.  The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf penned a piece that certainly got under many Aussies’ skins where he asked if we could even consider Australia a western democracy anymore given the stringent travel policy that mirrored that of North Korea than a representative government.

With Omicron now sweeping through the country, as it’s doing everywhere else, the government isn’t locking down. They’re allowing it to burn through. The new approach is the “let it rip” protocol. Given that Omicron is mild and the population is highly vaccinated, the outcomes aren’t as devastating pre-vaccine. That’s the logic. It’s certainly more level-headed than locking everyone back up again (via NBC News):

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https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2022/01/23/australia-radically-changes-covid-policy-as-omicron-sweeps-through-nation-n2602040

[Kamaji]

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You must ignore the panic porn peddlers. Omicron is not Delta. It’s mild, though super contagious. Its incubation period is also less, and those who have been vaccinated will be fine. There’s no point to lockdown if the spike was that great. The same goes for any nation. Everyone is going to be exposed. It’s only a matter of time. It’s not a “beast” of a variant. Its death rate is nowhere near Delta, neither is the hospitalization rate. We have vaccines and therapeutics now. COVID is endemic, so this “living with the virus” approach is welcome news from Australia, though things could change quickly. The New York Times did a report on the risk assessment on Omicron and found that for those 65 years of age or older, this variant poses no greater risk than the seasonal flu:

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