Australia Agrees Plan to Abandon Zero Covid Strategy

As infections surge during winter and with half the country now under restrictions in the ‘Zero Covid’ state, the national Government in Australia has finally accepted that trying to keep Covid out forever is no way to run a country. The cabinet has agreed plans to end restrictions and reopen borders as the country shifts to a vaccine strategy that treats Covid “like the flu”. ABC reports.

National Cabinet has agreed to a four-stage plan that would see Australia transform into a vaccinated nation that manages COVID-19 with few restrictions.

The goal, as Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, is for Australia to begin treating COVID-19 “like the flu”.

It would mean governments shift from focusing on case numbers to focusing on rates of hospitalisation and death as Australians learn to live with low rates of mild illness in the community.

To get to a point beyond lockdowns and border closures, Australians will need to roll up their sleeves and get vaccinated, but leaders are yet to agree how many jabs it will take to open up.

However, as the Swiss Doctor notes, the country’s vaccine programme has not exactly got off to a good start.

Australia still has a very low, single-digit vaccination rate; moreover, the country currently relies on AstraZeneca, which achieves only a 60% protection rate against symptomatic infection with the ‘Indian variant’, and which will be phased out due to several fatal and severe reactions in young adults. Thus, Australia is likely to face a fierce uphill battle against the coronavirus during the ongoing winter season

The media hysteria is in full swing down under, with the Australian Associated Press telling readers that the Delta variant is “twice as contagious as the original virus and can be spread through fleeting contact that lasts just seconds”. Oh dear, where’s a fact checker when you need one? Glad not to be in Australia right now.

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Catee
4 years ago

“It would mean governments shift from focusing on case numbers to focusing on rates of hospitalisation and death as Australians learn to live with low rates of mild illness in the community.”
No, it means governments are going to focus on coercing their population to have an expensive, unnecessary and dangerous jab.

wendy
wendy
4 years ago
Reply to  Catee

Yes. And since the population have been convinced covid is deadly it’s going to take many of their population some mind shifting. They have been pouring scorn on the rest of the world so it’s going to be quite a shift for them.

Carmen B
Carmen B
4 years ago
Reply to  wendy

“Pouring scorn on the rest of the world”? More like feeling sympathy for the rest of you and grateful so few have died here.
But indeed, many are dumb enough to think WuFlu is really dangerous.

wendy
wendy
4 years ago
Reply to  Carmen B

Perhaps it may not be possible to avoid some death, vaccines or no. It will be seen. PCR has resulted in over counting of deaths and only relevant excess deaths can be used and then it seems difficult to tell who died from covid and who died from the panicked measures.

Julian
4 years ago
Reply to  wendy

If you can find a consistent link between lockdowns and saved lives, you’re cleverer than I am. There have been a dizzying variety of outcomes and measures, and it seems to me that they show that governmental attempts to “control” the virus once endemic, which it was in most of the world very early on, are utterly futile.

miketa1957
miketa1957
4 years ago
Reply to  Julian

Which was, of course, the WHO advice for years, before their sudden about face.

Samurai Jack
Samurai Jack
4 years ago
Reply to  wendy

If you look at the ONS stats, they originally used two ICD codes to code covid deaths..

From February 2021, in the UK, they now use 4 ICD codes to code covid deaths

đŸ€”

Moist Von Lipwig
4 years ago
Reply to  Carmen B

Carmen, lockdown has saved no lives whatsoever but Branch Covidian communist doomsday cultists have been applauding Australia, with the implication that lockdown saves lives.

miketa1957
miketa1957
4 years ago

I think Carmen is stating what a majority of Australians think. Here reference to the WuFlu rather gives away her position.

Caramel
Caramel
4 years ago
Reply to  Carmen B

Why grateful? Australia wouldn’t have noticed the difference in death rates had nothing been done. The strategy is a failure of epic proportions.

Lockdown Sceptic
4 years ago
Reply to  Catee

School sends 11-year-old child home after she attended anti-lockdown protest with her dad
https://unitynewsnetwork.co.uk/school-sends-11-year-old-child-home-after-she-attended-anti-lockdown-protest-with-her-dad/

Stand in South Hill Park Bracknell every Sunday 10am meet fellow lockdown sceptics, keep yourself sane, make new friends and have a laugh.
Join our Stand in the Park – Bracknell – Telegram Group
http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell

realarthurdent
4 years ago

“However, as the Swiss Doctor notes, the country’s vaccine programme has not exactly got off to a good start.

Australia still has a very low, single-digit vaccination rate; “

Sounds like it’s got off to an excellent start.

If they stop now, and adopt a “Zero Vaccine” policy, they’ll have completely knocked it out of the park.

SimCS
4 years ago
Reply to  realarthurdent

To exterminate the virus, you need a prophylactic, which the vaccines are not. Ivermectin is, and very effective, and far safer than these experimental vaccines..

Julian
4 years ago

Giesecke told them this a year or more ago

I am Spartacas
4 years ago
Reply to  Julian

Absolutely – which is why Sweden is in a far better position than we are now.

Marcus Aurelius knew
4 years ago
Reply to  I am Spartacas

Er excuse me I think you need to read the news. All Swedes have died owing to their reckless approach to this deadly virus. Serves them right.

NOT!

Lockdown_Lunacy
4 years ago

Haha. I had a discussion about Sweden and their light touch corona approach with someone yesterday. He said to me, “oh but they paid for it though!”

I told him that I must have missed that and even showed him the ‘league table’. He still didn’t really believe me. Strange.

Julian
4 years ago

Some part of him would not let him believe you, because if he had then the deep seated assumptions, suffering and sacrifice of the last 18 months would have been devastated, and he would have had to face the fact he had been lied to by the government and the media, and that he was surrounded by people who had gone stark staring bonkers. So it’s not surprising in a way. Self-preservation.

The other trick they like to try is to say that Sweden actually did lock down. I was there in the autumn and while it’s true it was quiet, they had no masks and very few restrictions and the people that were out and about were behaving normally. They all trotted out the line about Swedes being distant but in my experience they were less distant than the English and often pushed past me in a way that people haven’t been doing in the UK since this madness started.

Lockdown_Lunacy
4 years ago
Reply to  Julian

Both points are spot on. Nothing to add to that.

Dave Angel Eco Warrier
Dave Angel Eco Warrier
4 years ago

That is not uncommon. Many people will simply not contemplate that what they get from MSM might possibly be wrong, so the easiest reaction is to treat what us sceptics have to say as moon man talk and completely dismiss it.

Lockdown_Lunacy
4 years ago

Yes exactly. I’ve noticed that their eyes sort of glaze over when you dispute what they have heard. SPI-B have really done a number on many otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people. I really do wonder why their techniques have not affected me or my family.

ellie-em
4 years ago

I’ve often pondered that and why I’m different to lots of my friends, associates and former colleagues. I’m ashamed to admit that I’m a sucker for tv shopping channels, buying stuff I never knew I needed or wanted until I saw the presentations! (At least the charity shops do well out of me when I palm my purchases off.) I’ve bought some very good stuff but also a load of tat.

Yet, all this Covid propaganda has left me absolutely cold. Never fell for it. Saw right through it.

KidFury
KidFury
4 years ago

I know I shouldn’t laugh but hahaha. Smugness gone now.

I still think the Swedes have played this the best

Moist Von Lipwig
4 years ago
Reply to  KidFury

Sweden followed precedent, evidence, science and standard procedure.

iane
iane
4 years ago

Yes indeed: Truly Shocking behaviour!!!

Caramel
Caramel
4 years ago
Reply to  KidFury

The Swedes still overreacted. They just overreacted less.

Brett_McS
4 years ago

Good to see some sense creeping in. The use of ‘cases’ was always a con. “Case” used to be the short form of “Hospital case” – meaning someone who is genuinely ill, not a positive test on a symptomless individual.

steve_w
4 years ago

“To get to a point beyond lockdowns and border closures, Australians will need to roll up their sleeves and get vaccinated, but leaders are yet to agree how many jabs it will take to open up.”

or just bring in the delta variant. contagious but harmless. be done and dusted in a month

Draper233
4 years ago

Zero Covid has to rank as one of the worst strategies ever devised and anybody who believed in it or implemented it ought to be on their way to the nearest institution so they can never cause harm to other people ever again.

Instead we’ll now have the likes of psychopath Chairman Dan licking his lips about how he intends to use his power to “nudge” Aussies into having the vax.

aussienomad
4 years ago

From the linked ABC article…

Phase 3
Allowing vaccinated people to leave the country

In other words, those who are not vaccinated will remain convicts.

Glad I got out before this authoritarian nightmare began.

Girl down Under
Girl down Under
4 years ago
Reply to  aussienomad

Many a true word said in jest!!!! The only plan they have is you take the toxic jab and as you say if you don’t you will remain convicts. However, it looks like some of those who have been administered the jab have not done that well in the air.

Rowland P
Rowland P
4 years ago
Reply to  aussienomad

Yes, Australia has turned into the biggest open prison in the world!!

paul smith
4 years ago

That penultimate sentence:
‘Oh dear, where’s a fact checker when you need one?’
EDIT – ‘Oh dear, where’s an honest fact checker when you need one?’
ANSWER – ‘Nowhere to be found for the past 15 months.’

BeBopRockSteady
4 years ago

Suprised they are so honest about it. Trying to paint a backtrack as a progressive move is their stock in grade

GCarty80
GCarty80
4 years ago

I wasn’t expecting them to change tack until after next year’s elections…

iane
iane
4 years ago
Reply to  GCarty80

Or, maybe, it’s because next year’s elections are looming!

Silke David
4 years ago

Heard a report about life from Australia yesterday, a lady living in NorthEast Australia.
Popular with people from the South to retire to, lots of people already own houses which they let out until retirement. A lot of people from Melbourne moved North after the first Lockdown and consequently made many local people homeless.
The lady told a story how a local tourist thing is to drive 11h to a remote train station and then take the train back. A group had boarded the bus for the overnight trip, during this time Brisbane went into Lockdown. At the destination, police waiting, everyone who had left Brisbane at a certain date (day they found the +?), needed to self isolate. Anyone who left the day earlier was able to board the train. It did not occur to anyone that they just spend 11 hours in a small space together, smaller than the train.
I sincerely hope Australia is making these changes happen.

Lockdown Sceptic
4 years ago

They lockdown if one person sneezes in Australia

School sends 11-year-old child home after she attended anti-lockdown protest with her dad
https://unitynewsnetwork.co.uk/school-sends-11-year-old-child-home-after-she-attended-anti-lockdown-protest-with-her-dad/

Stand in South Hill Park Bracknell every Sunday 10am meet fellow lockdown sceptics, keep yourself sane, make new friends and have a laugh.
Join our Stand in the Park – Bracknell – Telegram Group
http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell

Hawkins_94
Hawkins_94
4 years ago

“Glad not to be in Australia right now”

Because we have it so good here đŸ€Ł

Hugh
Hugh
4 years ago

I said it didn’t I, and now even they realise they’ve been had by China – perhaps.

Girl down Under
Girl down Under
4 years ago

The media hysteria is well and truly in full swing as is the daily hectoring, lecturing and bullying particularly in NSW at the moment by the Premier, Health Minister and Police Commissioner. They are a disgrace. Gladys can barely control her palpable fear of the Delta strain which has killed absolutely……..no one. Yet the thugs in uniform are slamming heads into the side of divvy vans and hassling asthmatics on trains for not having masks on. We were even told the other day to only listen to their health advice, not take into account any other information except from them. And yet the vaccines have been associated with more than 300 deaths, but only two cases from blood clots have been accepted by the TGA. A very elderly family member of mine had the first AZ shot about 5 weeks ago and has been unwell for weeks with really vague symptoms but her bloods are all over the place and she feels like death. We have one federal minister, Mr Craig Kelly who has been sneered at and belittled by the media for his very earnest representations into the successful use of ivermectin protocols, and who has presented a bill… Read more »

optocarol
optocarol
4 years ago

Sounds like our “dear leader” in NZ when she said last year, “We are your only source of truth.” Yeah right!

Phil Shannon
4 years ago

The most recent survey (by the Fairfax press with Resolve Strategic) shows that nearly a third of Australian adults are wary of the ‘vaccines’ – 15% are “not at all likely” and 14% are “not very likely” to be vaccinated in the months ahead (half of all these cited concern about side-effects as their main reason whilst only 4% were genuine ‘anti-vaxxers’ rather than anti-just-the-Covid-vaccine).

This poses real problems for the government which hasn’t set a vax target but NSW Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, is talking 75% to 80% as the goal, which seems to be around the mark. It will therefore take some real heavy lifting by a ‘vaccine passport’ to deny access to venues and services to the Unclean, coupled with a full-court propaganda press (‘No one is safe until everyone is safe’ – ‘safe’ meaning jabbed, natch – is the current sisnister advertising slogan).

Meanwhile, heavy-handed enforcement of lockdown, mask-mandates and QR sign-in theatre by the Covid Cops continues. I don’t recognise this country anymore.

You are right to be angry.

damage124
damage124
4 years ago

If the government just treats it like flu they can throw these very suspect vaccines down the drain.

Crystal Decanter
4 years ago

or
try treating it like the other H-Cov colds

brachiopod
4 years ago

Considering that scientists working in Monash University demonstrated that ivermectin completely prevented replication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus within weeks of it emerging as a human pathogen, it isn’t ‘zero Covid’ that is the wrong target, it is the tool using the wrong tools to achieve it.
We have been very ill-served by Morrison, he needs to admit his failure and go.

Epi
Epi
4 years ago

“The goal, as Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, is for Australia to begin treating COVID-19 “like the flu”.”

Exactly so what you do is NOTHING. Senior citizens can be offered a flu vaccine if they want it and the rest of the population can get back to normality. Simple really.

Occams Pangolin Pie
4 years ago
Reply to  Epi

It is easy to write this:
Australia would be better off being governed by Sir Les Patterson when totally pissed than the spineless morons now pretending to be in charge.

SimCS
4 years ago

Perhaps they should take a leaf out of Mexico’s book, and use Ivermectin routinely. In Mexico, they cleared hospitals from overflowing to empty in 2 weeks. Listen to: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7uVXKgE6eLJKMXkETwcw0D?si=mWC9M17CRFakqbyLetDCIw&nd=1 which is an interview with US lung and ICU physician Dr Pierre Kory (it’s nearly 3 hours, but is explosive in its damning assessment of governments’ and Pharma’s response to the aggressive suppression of what is a safe and very effective drug for treating covid, a prophylactic, *and* for treating long covid. There have been over 200 trials of Ivermectin, including (double) blind and also meta-analyses, universally very positive.

Occams Pangolin Pie
4 years ago
Reply to  SimCS

I think for this reason alone they cannot now turn back.
They are in blood stepped in so far