“If We Get Covid, So Be It”: Cries of Hypocrisy as Australia Allows Covid-Positive Cricketer to Play Despite Deporting Djokovic Over Vaccine
Australia’s decision to field a cricketer who tested positive for COVID-19 at the Commonwealth Games has sparked claims of hypocrisy given the country’s hard line on lockdowns during the pandemic and its decision to deport Novak Djokovic over his vaccination status. MailOnline has more.
Tahlia McGrath was permitted to play at Edgbaston in Birmingham yesterday despite testing positive. She bowled and batted in the match and also took the catch that dismissed India’s star opener Shafali Verma as the Southern Stars took gold.
She batted at No. 4 without a mask before she was dismissed after scoring just two runs off four balls. McGrath then bowled two overs for 24 runs and also took a catch, when she held up her hands to warn her fellow players not to come and celebrate with her.
But when they won the game, McGrath jumped into the huddle and hugged her teammates. Australian bowler Megan Schutt said afterwards: “If we get Covid, so be it.”
Had the match been played in Australia, McGrath would have been forced to isolate for seven days. But in the U.K., where self-isolation rules are advisory only, Ms. McGrath could play.
She had woken up with mild symptoms yesterday morning and then returned a positive test. However, she was still selected in the Aussies’ XI after tournament organisers approved her participation following consultations before the toss, which was delayed.
McGrath did not line up with her team-mates during the pre-match national anthems and did not join them in the dugout while they were batting, instead sitting in the stands wearing a mask. After taking part in the match, Tahlia wore a mask at the medal ceremony and as she celebrated gold with her teammates on the podium, where she had her arms around Beth Mooney and Alana King.
She is understood to be the first player known to have Covid to take part in an international cricket match, with Birmingham allowing each positive athlete to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
But critics have said she should not have been allowed to play. Many Indian supporters felt the decision was ‘racist’ and that India would have been ruled out of the final if the shoe was on the other foot. There was also anger because Indian para discus athlete Aneesh Kumar Pillai was banned from his Commonwealth final in Birmingham after testing positive for COVID-19. The virus was picked up by a random swab – and he was asymptomatic – but the Commonwealth Games Federation said he couldn’t take part.
There were also claims of hypocrisy by the Australians, given their very hard line on lockdowns and vaccination to slow the spread. Their strict rules led to Novak Djokovic being excluded from the Australian Open tennis and deported – despite him not having COVID-19. Former prime minister Scott Morrison even spent $2 billion of taxpayers’ money on quarantine facilities now scattered around Australia that sit unused and empty.
“If we get Covid, so be it.” Ah, the forbidden words that would have saved the world so much trouble.
Worth reading in full.
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The main requirement is to do what you’re told by your benevolent government.
If you don’t join in then you’re a bad person and won’t be tolerated.
Bizarre that they’re allowed to advertise someone’s health records at all, but at least it appears that the organisers in Birmingham are sane enough to allow someone fit enough to play cricket to get on with it. Of course, the “testing positive” result could be grossly inaccurate as well, and probably meaningless.
Oh, eeerrrr, hummm, could it be that she just had the start of the common cold?
We all know how useless ‘the tests’ are.
But was she “vaccinated”?!
Indeed
Barring Djokovic and the “unvaccinated” was nothing to do with Covid per se and everything to do with making a political point and specifically to prevent giving a victory to a known defender of bodily autonomy
It’s good that she played and that her team mate said that – a victory for common sense and a blow to the Covid fanatics
Can’t escape
the penal colonyAustralia if one is untainted….Hopefully somebody will keep an eye out for further C1984 outbreaks among the Australian contingent in say the next ten days. What a cracking unofficial control group.
You gotta laugh.😆😆😆😆
You’re assuming they’ve all been “vaccinated”!
https://cdn.revolutionise.com.au/cups/tta/files/q5nbmtwnv6xnngjf.pdf
This seems to suggest everyone from Australia, who is at the Commonwealth Games, had to be jabbed….
Mandatory vaccination for Team members
2.1 In light of the above, CGA has determined that all Team members must:
(a) have completed a full course of an Approved Vaccine; and
(b) have also received any vaccine booster(s) that the individual is eligible to receive in accordance with the recommendations of Australian public health officials,
(up-to-date), as a condition of their selection to the Team, continued membership of the Team and participation in the Games, unless they have been granted an exemption in accordance with the terms of this policy.
…officially.
Don’t get me wrong, my faith in my fellow humans’ ability to ignore/break stupid rules has been all but completely destroyed over the last couple of years, but I strongly suspect there is/was a thriving industry helping thinking people in places like Australia avoid the toxins.
That sounds like coercion to accept medical intervention, which would, prima facie, appear to run foul of the Nuremberg Code. The negative efficacy of the vaccine after a few weeks might be showing up, and the Original Antigenic Sin might be involved too. It will take some years to disentangle what with variants, boosters, politicians, pharmaceutical companies, the UN and the CCP being involved.
If she complied with that, and if the “test” results were accurate enough, it tends to suggest that the product does nothing more than what it said on the tin, and is virtually useless to people like that, albeit putting them at a significant risk as well.
I’m assuming nothing Joe.
Although certainly infuriating for Djokovic this is good news. The more minds that can be retrained into understanding this thing is a mild cold the better. The decision would have been made at a sporting level, not a political one, so I don’t see there’s any hypocrisy; in fact, it’s the people effectively sticking their fingers up to their own government, so this is excellent news.
It’s good news and bad news.
Good news because it shows the pointlessness of discrimination against the unjabbed.
Bad news because despite the mountain of evidence of the pointlessness of discrimination against the unjabbed, the discrimination continues. And the longer that insanity persists, the less insane it seems and the more normal it becomes and our society becomes the worse for it.
Love it. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve asked people what they actually think is going to happen if they ‘caught Covid’. Unfortunately, many still seem to think hospitalisation and death are an inevitability despite the clear evidence it is not and never has been. Yet on the other hand many seem quite proud and find it fun if they do actually get the Covids which completely flies in the face of the repeated claim we are living with a deadly virus. And don’t get me started with ‘but what about the vulnerable?’.
I am an unvaxxed pensioner in his mid/late seventies and went down with an acute flu-like illness on 30th July. I spent the whole day in bed, but got up the next day (2) for brief periods. The following day (3) I was still very weak, but was obliged to recommence limited border collie walking duties. Have steadily improved since and am almost back to normal apart from being rather chesty. Used Quercetin, zinc, vitamin C and overall about a dozen paracetamol. Paracetamol habit has now been kicked, though still using the other stuff. Whether it was Covid or not I don’t know.
Indeed and before 2020 what particular brand of mild lurgy people has was generally of little interest to anyone beyond specialists doing long term research
Proof if anything of what a complete farce this was after the disgraceful treatment of Djokovic by Australia! Unbelievable!
Commonwealth Games…I think the clue is in the title. It’s all a game, no one knows what the rules are and the referees sometimes think you’re out and sometimes in. The players sort of follow the rules, as far as they can because they’re always changing, but bend them when they see a clear advantage in not adhering to them. However, it is important for players to pretend to stick to the rules. It’s game of pretend and make believe basically.
Even more ridiculous is the fact that Djokovic is still banned from the USA of all places.
“If we get Covid, so be it.” Ah, the forbidden words that would have saved the world so much trouble.
Indeed. I remember when a college spring breaker in Florida in March 2020 basically said the same thing and was vilified for it. Looks like he was simply two years ahead of his time, and he was actually thinking far more rationally than most of the panic-stricken world.
Good for her glad she played but why are we still using a fraudulent test that the inventor Kary Mullis said shouldn’t be used as a diagnostic tool? It’s a cold ffs. As for masks please don’t get me on that subject pointless dangerous polluting pieces of ……