🎙️ "There's no getting around it now: Victoria is a police state." @GideonCRozner on 'The IPA With You' pic.twitter.com/yYYgZwRw3n
— Institute of Public Affairs (@TheIPA) September 3, 2020
coronavirus
Queensland Hypocrisy
I think what rankles many people about the Queensland border issue, apart from the horrible consequences it is bringing, is the breath-taking hypocrisy of the women leading it- the Premier and her Chief Medical Officer.
Yesterday they stated that to open the border with NSW would require 28 days of no new cases in NSW.
They have not even achieved that in Queensland. By this standard, there should be a hard border with Brisbane- nobody in or out of the State capital.
And don’t forget that most of NSW- ie the bits outside of Sydney- achieved this months ago but they still say that the whole of NSW is a “hot spot.” In fact some LGA’s, such as Narrabri Shire, have never had a single case of corona virus.
Meanwhile businesses near the border (on both sides) are closing because they rely on customers across the border. People are missing out on vital health treatments because Queensland Health Department officials will not allow them to enter “their” hospitals. For some farmers, the first harvest they have had in 3 years may be jeopardised if they cannot get workers, contractors or repairers across the border.
But at least they got the AFL Grand Final in Brisbane.
Queensland Border Pass Guide
If you need to get into Queensland, here is a handy flow chart.
Tyranny in Australia
I warned at the beginning of the pandemic that we need to watch out for governments striking our rights in the name of “keeping us safe.”
So in Victoria they have curfew and house arrest, a compliant Parliament thinks that the Premier should do it for another 6 months, and police arrested a pregnant woman for posting details of an anti-lockdown protest on Facebook.
Apparently marches in support of Marxist groups such as Black Lives Matter are fine, but question the government’s handling of the pandemic and they will send in the storm troopers to arrest and intimidate you.
Meanwhile in northern NSW a woman carrying twins lost one of them because “Queensland hospitals are for Queenslanders; they have NSW hospitals for NSW people.” True, but if you live in Lismore, Brisbane is much closer than Sydney.
If you live in Mungundi which literally straddles the border,too bad if you want to buy groceries. After their only supermarket burnt down, resident could travel to Moree, their nearest town, but it’s out of the bubble and so anyone doing that would have to self-isolate for 14 days if they want to enter Queensland, which is where their town’s medical services are. That’s in a region that has not had a single case of coronavirus.
Building supplies companies and tradies in SE Qld are losing work because much of their business relies on projects in northern NSW outside the bubble.
The Queensland tourism industry is facing devastation because people from interstate are unable to travel there.
But at least they got the AFL Grand Final… because football is more important than lives. It’s called bread and circuses, a political tactic that goes back at least to the Roman Empire. Entertain the plebs so they won’t complain as you slaughter them.
What a happy coincidence for Anastasia. Her state election is a week after the Queendalnd AFL Grand Final for Queenslanders.
This is Australia in 2020, and maybe some of these things are necessary to contain a virus that is less deadly than the flu to all except the over 70’s and people with other severe and chronic illnesses. In the USA, this week the CDC downgraded the number of official deaths due to Covid from over 100,000 to about 5,000- because all of the others had other issues that contributed to their death.
I am not a conspiracy theorist- most people and organisations are too inept to run a proper conspiracy. Australia needs to wake up to the power grabs and the petty restrictions on our way of life.
UPDATE:
Shortly after posting this, I received an email from Service NSW offering a special service to businesses. They can give you a QR code for people to scan when entering a business. This sends their contact information straight to the NSW Government so that if they need to use the information, they can get it straight away. I would suggest that people refuse to use this “service.”
Pamela Geller: Sweden Beat Covid Without A Brutal Lockdown
Pamela Geller writes:
Sweden Refused to Lockdown: They Were Right, New Cases Plunge, Very Ill Approach ZERO
“In many ways the voluntary measures we put in place in Sweden have been just as effective as complete lockdowns in other countries,” Anders Tegnell, the chief epidemiologist at Sweden’s public health agency,
Sweden is a case study in what to do next time. Their results are eye-opening Lockdowns, destroying our economy, millions unemployed, neighborhood Stasi, Covid Karens, — not necessary.
It’s what the rational among us have been reporting for months.
Bloomberg: As other countries face renewed outbreaks, Sweden’s latest Covid-19 figures suggest it’s rapidly bringing the virus under control.
“That Sweden has come down to these levels is very promising,” state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell told reporters in Stockholm on Tuesday.
The Health Agency of Sweden says that since hitting a peak in late June, the infection rate has fallen sharply. That’s amid an increase in testing over the period. “The curves are going down and the curves for the seriously ill are beginning to approach zero,” state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell said.
Herd immunity.
Sweden COVID-19 Death Rate Lower Than Spain, Italy and U.K., Despite Never Having Lockdown (Newsweek)
While novel coronavirus cases have spiked across several parts of Europe, including Spain, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, Sweden—where a countrywide lockdown was never issued—continues to report a downward trend in new cases and new deaths.
……the infection rate has fallen sharply. That’s amid an increase in testing over the period. “The curves are going down and the curves for the seriously ill are beginning to approach zero,” Tegnell said.
Swedish Covid Cases Trend Down
Source: Health Agency of Sweden
The development follows months of controversy over Sweden’s decision to avoid a full lockdown. The unusual strategy coincided with a much higher Covid-19 mortality rate than elsewhere in the Nordic region.Per 100,000, Swedish deaths even exceeded those in the U.S. and Brazil.
I Looked Up What Happened When Sweden Refused To Shut Down – They Were Right, We Were Wrong
By Josh Manning,The Western Journal,Published August 1, 2020:
Sweden did it.
The Nordic country defeated COVID-19 without seeming to break a sweat — fever-induced or otherwise. They effectively showed that Fauci & Co. were completely wrong about a shutdown being necessary to save civilization as we know it.
While that accomplishment should be lauded and their efforts duplicated around the world, the media has instead chosen to blast the Nordic state and paint a dismal picture that simply doesn’t exist.
A few examples (among many, many others) are below:
CBS Newsdeclared: “Sweden becomes an example of how not to handle COVID-19.” Similarly, theUniversity of Virginia Health Systemissued a news release titled: “Lack of Lockdown Increased COVID-19 Deaths in Sweden.”
Taking a stab at prognostication,Newsweeksaid: “Sweden COVID-19 Deaths Linked to Failure to Lockdown as Country Prepares for Second Wave.” Always eager to bravely embrace the status quo,The New York Timesran a piece headlined: “Sweden Tries Out a New Status: Pariah State.”
Finally,Business Insiderreported: “Sweden’s coronavirus death toll is now approaching zero, but experts are warning others not to hail it as a success.”
It’s all awfully prickly from a leftist media that used to adore Sweden’s welfare state. The reason for the barbed headlines is simple — Sweden dealt with COVID-19 in its own way.
The country didn’t truckle to the tyranny of over-educated, under-experienced experts. It didn’t implement authoritarian policies designed as much to break spirits as to break the pandemic. And it didn’t turn its voters into quasi-prisoners.
In other words, Sweden responded more or less the way the rest of the developed world has responded to contagious diseases until 2020, which just happens to also be President Donald Trump’s re-election year.
What were Sweden’s results?
Read the full article here
Thousands join outcry against NSW Premier’s religion crackdown
Thousands join outcry against NSW Premier’s religion crackdown
Pressure is building on NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian to end her discriminatory COVID-19 church crackdown.
Over six thousand people have signed a petition launched by the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney on May 27.
Presently in NSW fifty people can meet at hospitality venues. But as few as eleven people are prohibited from meeting at a church.
“Churches have cooperated at every stage with the Government’s public health directives during this pandemic,” Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP said.
“We understand that the shutdown was necessary to flatten the curve, but it came at a cost – not only to the economy, but also to the spiritual and mental health of our people.
“They miss gathering for worship and praying in a sacred space. I am at a loss to explain to Catholics in Sydney why our reasonable requests to the government are not being granted.
“Contrary to what has been said throughout this pandemic, we do not consider church attendance to be non-essential; indeed, nothing is more essential than the practice of our faith,” reads the petition.
“Catholics are not asking for special treatment, we are asking for equal treatment.
“This unequal treatment of religious worship leads us to ask whether the Government is listening to the concerns of Catholics and other people of faith or indifferent to the effect the closure of our churches is having on people during these difficult times.
“The freedom to practice faith is necessary for human flourishing and a great contributor to the common good.”
FamilyVoice Australia National Director Peter Downie said, “Governments have been heavy-handed and unjust in their treatment of churches during the COVID-19 crisis.”
Lessons From The Lock Down
The so-called lock down in Australia has not been as draconian as in other places, at least not in law. The nightly scolding by politicians, though, keeps people in their place. And if they stray, then the police are always ready to hand out $1000+ fines.
I have learned some things about people and about myself during this time that I would not have expected.
- People give up their hard earned rights and freedoms with very little care. Who would have though a few months ago that we would willingly embrace the closing down of churches, pubs and restaurants? Freedom of association is a basic human right, yet we have surrendered that without any debate.
- Who would have thought that police would roam the streets, stopping people to ask them where they are going, and to send them back if they don’t have a reasonable excuse?
- I have seen disturbing signs of the contempt of the young towards the old that has come from the fact that many victims of the corona virus are elderly.
- No surprise, but I thought I wouldn’t see it in Australia. Politicians who take your rights away will not readily let go of their power. The “crisis” must go on longer than first expected. People will have to agitate to get their freedom back.
I have also learned some things about myself in this time. The chief thing among them is that I am not so nearly introverted as I thought.
Extroverts are people who find energy from being with other people, while introverts find energy in being alone. Extroverts like to party when they are down to help them forget, while introverts like to spend time alone to work things out and find energy to face life.
I have discovered that I love people, physically present people, people that you can touch and see their body language. Yes too much of that and I tire easily, but they are people that God loves and Jesus died for, and I love them too. I miss them.
Although I am a bit of a tech fan, and have always seen ways for computers and other devices to make life simpler, looking at people on a screen is no substitute for being in the room together. I love small groups partly because you can talk seriously with one another. But the camera and the screen put up a wall between people.
I miss worship. Yes I can worship God however and wherever I like. But corporate worship is something else. People have been live streaming their services, but that seems to me to be to worship what porn is to marriage. You can have all the same bits present but it misses the point. Worship is never about a good band and a preacher performing, while the rest of us watch on. Worship is about the gathered people of God, together expressing praise and adoration to the Lord. I don’t care what anybody says, you can’t do that by way of a screen, and whatever a live stream is it isn’t worship.
I don’t know how long this lock down will last, but I suspect that with declining deaths and declining new cases the pressure will be growing for politicians to wind back the restrictions.
As they do that we need to make sure that we end up with the full restorations of freedom and human rights.
Export the Disease, Sabotage the Cure
The Chinese Government (not the Chinese people, not being racist) is criminally culpable in so many ways in this corona scare.
First they export the disease, then they cover it up, then they export dodgy protection equipment that could kill people. Do they care?
From the ABC via Michael Smith
Australian Border Force seizes dodgy Chinese Coronavirus face-masks & other faulty equipment sold to us by China
Wednesday, 01 April 2020
Authorities have begun seizing Chinese-made faulty face masks and other protective clothing that is being exported to Australia to help halt the spread of coronavirus.
Key points:
- An official has dubbed some of the intercepted Chinese personal protective equipment “dodgy”
- Spain, Turkey and the Netherlands have rejected Chinese-made protective equipment
- Australia has banned face masks, gloves, gowns, goggles, alcohol wipes and hand sanitiser exports
The ABC has learnt that in recent weeks, Australian Border Force (ABF) officers have intercepted several deliveries of personal protective equipment (PPE) that have been found to be counterfeit or otherwise faulty.
One law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, estimated the ABF had already seized 800,000 masks with a combined value of more than $1.2 million on the Australian market.
“We started seeing this stuff arriving roughly three weeks ago when news of the pandemic was really taking off,” the official told the ABC.
“The dodgy material is coming via air cargo because there is a backlog of sea freight at Australian ports.”
The ABC has approached the Department of Home Affairs and the Minister for Home Affairs for comment.
The Department refused to comment and the ABC is yet to receive a response from the Minister’s office.
The Federal Government today officially banned the exporting of protective equipment such as masks, gloves and gowns from Australia during the coronavirus outbreak.
It foreshadowed the plan last week, and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton and Health Minister Greg Hunt have now signed off on the new regulations.
New rules are also stopping people buying up supplies of protective equipment to then resell locally at an inflated price.
It has also sought to boost supply by opening up the nation’s emergency medical stockpile and increasing domestic production.
In Victoria, Army personnel have been deployed to manufacturer Med-Con to help double the factory’s production of face masks.
Several European governments have rejected Chinese-made equipment designed to combat the coronavirus outbreak in recent days.
Thousands of testing kits and medical masks are below standard or defective, according to authorities in Spain, Turkey and the Netherlands.
The Dutch health ministry announced it had recalled 600,000 face masks on March 28.
The equipment arrived from a Chinese manufacturer on March 21 and had already been distributed to frontline medical teams.
Dutch officials said the masks did not fit and their filters did not work as intended, even though they had a quality certificate.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying has rejected suggestions the country’s exports were faulty.
“A large number of Chinese manufacturers are working around the clock to help other countries save lives,” she said yesterday.
Sweden- The Control Country To Test Pandemic Control
While nearly every nation has mandated panic measures such as lockdowns and economic shutdown, Sweden has used a more relaxed, voluntary approach with guidelines rather than regulation. They even encourage people to go outside and <shock> have fun together.
By doing this they have effectively set themselves up as the “control case” i.e. the business as normal situaiton against which other cases can be compared.
From the BBC:
Lockdown, what lockdown? Sweden’s unusual response to coronavirus
While swathes of Europe’s population endure lockdown conditions in the face of the coronavirus outbreak, one country stands almost alone in allowing life to go on much closer to normal.
After a long winter, it’s just become warm enough to sit outside in the Swedish capital and people are making the most of it.
Families are tucking into ice creams beneath a giant statue of the Viking God Thor in Mariatorget square. Young people are enjoying happy-hour bubbles from pavement seating further down the street.
Elsewhere in the city, nightclubs have been open this week, but gatherings for more than 50 people will be banned from Sunday.
Compare that to neighbouring Denmark, which has restricted meetings to 10 people, or the UK where you’re no longer supposed to meet anyone outside your household.
‘Each person has a heavy responsibility’
On the roads in Sweden, things are noticeably quieter than usual. Stockholm’s public transport company SL says it saw passenger numbers fall by 50% on subway and commuter trains last week.
Polls also suggest almost half of Stockholmers are remote working.
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Stockholm Business Region, a state-funded company that supports the city’s global business community, estimates that rises to at least 90% in the capital’s largest firms, thanks to a tech-savvy workforce and a business culture that has long promoted flexible and remote working practices.
“Every company that has the possibility to do this, they are doing it, and it works,” says its CEO Staffan Ingvarsson.
His words cut to the heart of the government’s strategy here: self-responsibility. Public health authorities and politicians are still hoping to slow down the spread of the virus without the need for draconian measures.
There are more guidelines than strict rules, with a focus on staying home if you’re sick or elderly, washing your hands, and avoiding any non-essential travel, as well as working from home.
Sweden has so far reported nearly 3,500 cases of the virus and 105 deaths.
“We who are adults need to be exactly that: adults. Not spread panic or rumours,” Prime Minister Stefan Löfven said in a televised address to the nation last weekend.
“No one is alone in this crisis, but each person has a heavy responsibility.”
High level of trust
A majority of Swedes watched and approved of his speech, according to a nationwide survey for Novus, a major polling company.
Meanwhile, there is a high level of trust in public authorities in Sweden, which many believe is driving locals to adhere to voluntary guidelines.
Demography may also be a relevant factor in the country’s approach. In contrast to the multi-generational homes in Mediterranean countries, more than half of Swedish households are made up of one person, which cuts the risk of the virus spreading within families.
Meanwhile, Swedes love the outdoors and officials have said that keeping people physically and mentally healthy is another reason they’re keen to avoid rules that would keep people cooped up at home.
“We have to combine looking at minimising the health effects of the virus outbreak and the economic impacts of this health crisis,” says Andreas Hatzigeorgiou, CEO at the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce.
“The business community here really thinks that the Swedish government and the Swedish approach is more sensible than in many other countries.”
‘History will be the judge’
But as Swedes watch the rest of Europe grind to a halt, others are starting to question their country’s unique approach.
“I think people are prone to listen to the recommendations, but in this kind of critical situation, I am not sure that it’s enough,” says Dr Emma Frans, an epidemiologist based at Swedish medical university The Karolinska Institute.
She’s calling for “clearer instructions” for people on how they should interact in public places such as shops and gyms.
And while business is ticking over for some, others are struggling. Around the corner from Mariatorget’s busy bars, popular hipster barber shop Honest Al’s has seen customer numbers plummet, despite efforts to improve safety by staggering staffing and appointments.
“My wife is also having her own company, so we pretty much depend on ourselves. Business is bad. I still have bills to pay. We’re gonna have to call the banks,” says owner Al Mocika.
He’s putting his money on Sweden switching tactics and imposing a lockdown, something officials haven’t ruled out doing in the future.
Dr Emma Frans says history will be the judge of which politicians and scientists around Europe have made the best calls so far.
“Nobody really knows what measurements will be the most effective,” she says. “I’m quite glad that I’m not the one making these decisions”.
The Chinese Government Launches Biological Warfare In The form of Markets
We need to isolate ourselves from China until they shut down these markets for good. Otherwise we are just going to have pandemics every decade or two from the same source.
From Pamela Geller
SHOCKING: Chinese markets REOPEN, still selling bats and slaughtering rabbits on blood-soaked floors as Beijing celebrates ‘victory’ over the coronavirus
695 people are talking about this
WILL THEY EVER LEARN? CHINESE MARKETS ARE STILL SELLING BATS AND SLAUGHTERING RABBITS ON BLOOD-SOAKED FLOORS AS BEIJING CELEBRATES ‘VICTORY’ OVER THE CORONAVIRUS
- Cats, dogs and other domesticated and wild animals freely available to buy
- One sources says that: ‘the markets have gone back to operating in exactly the same way as they did before coronavirus’ despite the outbreaks links to bats
- Wild animals still for sale as food and traditional medicine in Chinese markets
- Coronavirus symptoms: what are they and should you see a doctor?
By George Knowles For The Mail,28 March 2020
Terrified dogs and cats crammed into rusty cages. Bats and scorpions offered for sale as traditional medicine. Rabbits and ducks slaughtered and skinned side by side on a stone floor covered with blood, filth, and animal remains.
Those were the deeply troubling scenes yesterday as China celebrated its ‘victory’ over the coronavirus by reopening squalid meat markets of the type that started the pandemic three months ago, with no apparent attempt to raise hygiene standards to prevent a future outbreak.
As the pandemic that began in Wuhan forced countries worldwide to go into lockdown, a Mail on Sunday correspondent yesterday watched as thousands of customers flocked to a sprawling indoor market in Guilin, south-west China.
Here cages of different species were piled on top of each other. In another meat market in Dongguan, southern China, another correspondent photographed a medicine seller returning to business on Thursday with a billboard advertising bats – thought to be the cause of the initial Wuhan outbreak – along with scorpions and other creatures.
The shocking scenes came as China finally lifted a weekslong nationwide lockdown and encouraged people to go back to normal daily life to boost the flagging economy. Official statistics indicated there were virtually no new infections.
Read the rest here
New Life Narrabri 