Australian authorities are stringently pursuing the wrong policies to deal with the highly transmissible but less lethal COVID variants that are spreading, choosing severe lockdowns in the most populous states of New South Wales (capital: Sydney) and Victoria (capital: Melbourne). The political leadership of the country, specifically including the Liberal Party (which is the conservative alternative to Labor), is committed to the hopeless task of preventing human contact until the virus simply disappears.

The enormous cost to mental health, to medical examination and treatment of other maladies, to the survival of small businesses, and to the education of children is totally ignored, trying to suppress a virus that has a survival rate above 99%. Moreover, the experience of Sweden demonstrates that lockdowns are unnecessary, and that building herd immunity ultimately saves lives.

So insane are the power-mad politicians that a Queensland woman was arrested for arranging delivery of cigarettes via drone while in a hotel quarantine, even though we now know that transmission of the virus by touching a surface rarely occurs.

It is unsurprising that citizens of Sydney erupted in a large-scale protest yesterday, with a police official placing the number of demonstrators at three and a half thousand, while others estimated a far larger figure. This video scans part of the crowd:

Australia’s second-largest city saw similar protests, as the AP reports:

In Melbourne, thousands of protesters without masks turned out downtown chanting “freedom." Some of them lit flares as they gathered outside Victoria state’s Parliament House.

Unfortunately, some demonstrators became violent.  Global News reports:

[P]rotesters threw potted plants, paint and water bottles at police officers and media, while others physically assaulted police horses. At least 57 people were arrested at Sydney's protest, with many more expected to come, while in neighbouring state, Victoria, local media reported at least half a dozen demonstrators were arrested in the city of Melbourne.

David Elliott, Police Minister for New South Wales (in Australia, states manage the police) chillingly seemed to promise arrest for all who protested, stating that police would work at “identifying as many people as possible who attended today’s incident and have them charged.”

His colleague in the New South Wales state government supplied the rationale for criminalizing protest itself:

“We live in a democracy and normally I am certainly one who supports people’s rights to protest ... but at the present time we’ve got cases going through the roof and we have people thinking that’s OK to get out there and possibly be close to each other at a demonstration," said state Health Minister Brad Hazzard.

Keep in mind that a “case” represents a positive PCR test not necessarily someone sick in bed or even feeling the slightest bit ill. With the use of ivermectin or the hydroxychloroquine regimen early on, nearly all of these “cases” that develop symptoms can be cured.

Viral infections spread virally. That is their nature. If you isolate or lockdown, you just delay the spread and delay herd immunity. Nobody has prevented the common cold or the flu from plaguing mankind despite their long history of harming us. The best we can do is seek and use the best therapies available to alleviate the harm. As COVID mutates, it seems to be following the familiar pattern of viruses increasing in transmissibility as they decline in lethality.

How much more of a price will Australians pay for their political leadership’s mistaken embrace of a cure that is worse than the disease?

Photo credit: YouTube screengrab

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