After a couple of years of major disruption, thousands of small business destroyed, little old ladies knocked down & pepper sprayed, people shot with rubber bullets, life made hard for millions with lockdowns straining the mental health of many, with a new mutation of the virus about to infest millions, it is all suddenly unnecessary.

Just as the new mutation floods the world we open up our boarder to get it here more quickly. As I said, what the hell was it all for, except to promote corruption.

Yes, all this great effort could have been worthwhile, it should have been worthwhile, but the traitorous politicians turned their backs, raised the white flag and invited the enemy in, rendering all our good efforts (not theirs!) null and void.

They did so because all they care about is their "economy".

Therefore let us hit them where it hurts them the most - in their economy!
Let us stay at home while the virus is ranging, let us minimise our consumption and expenses to the bare minimum, let their beloved GDP be at least halved.

I do also hope that some new party is elected next year that will reverse this idiocy, re-lock the borders and give us a good hard lockdown to clean up this mess.

And of course, if we cannot do it on the commonwealth level then each state should do this independently.

Any easing of restrictions is down to more people waking up to the scam and dictatorial behaviour of politicians and unelected government clerks. Even the lefty Sydney Morning Herald said, 'it's getting harder to respect the rules'. The politicians are packing the shites. Vote out as many of them as possible next year.

Its my view governments, other than the McGowan government in WA, have been premature in opening up to the new Scotty variant of the virus. Borders should have remained shut until 100% of the eligable population, 5 years and older had been double vaxxed, or been offered the vaccineene their choice, and a booster program was well on the way. After failing yet again Morrison has pushed for opening up, supposedly to line the pockets of his business buddies before Xmas.

The Marshall/Spurrier dictatorship in SA is still locking up people who DO NOT have Covid, including the Test Cricket captain. It looks as though the Marshall Liberal government will be a one-off. It's still working on 'emergency laws' when there is no longer an emergency. All governments in power, Labor or Liberal, should be voted out for their incompetence and totalitarianism. Who wants to be governed by an overpaid public clerk and a police commissioner? Oh, yeah. Australians who aren't capable of looking after their own health anymore. They need Nanny.

ttbn,

In the case of Covid how would you propose Australians look after their own health? To replace existing governments with who, those now in oppersition who agreed with the actions taken. Who then?

Hasbeen asks.

*… what the hell was it all for, except to promote corruption…*

An exhibition of official panic, with all the predictable outcomes.

Now the shark has turned for the kill, denial is the official position.

Dan

Just wait for the coming flu season, some of us won't be here by the time next spring arrives !
Covid will play almost as big a part as stupid people !

Individual says.

*… Covid will play almost as big a part as stupid people !…*

There now appears more evidence than ever that politicians are simply glorified corporate managers, educated in compromise.

Wasn’t Donald Trump refreshing!

Dan

I am really, really pissed off with the continuing announcements of daily Covid cases. Just imagine if, prior to Covid, influenza cases were broadcast daily. Lots of people got the 'flu; some people died of it if they were old or infirm. How boring would it have been! Just as boring as Covid statics for people who didn’t even know they had it are now.

Given the bungling of politicians and government workers, lots of the tested might just have a cold or, at worst the 'flu, which doesn't even get a mention these days.

Paul 1405

Come on! It's nothing to do with changing governments if individuals are to take responsibility for their own lives and health. Individual responsibility gets governments out of our lives. You get sick, you go to a doctor, who treats you or tells you what you have to do to help yourself. As for quarantining, the only people who have to be protected are the old and infirm, and if granny doesn't have family with enough sense not to visit her when they are sick, she should have trained them better.

I know people like you need politicians to tell you what to do and to protect you from everything nasty, but many of us are capable of looking after ourselves and resent political interference in our lives

Many Australians have been scared stupid by Covid, even though very few people die of it or even suffer much discomfort. Some Australians have become mentally unhinged by Covid, at least by the daily badgering and scaremongering from government and the media about Covid.

Umpteen "new cases" doesn't mean that they are serious; but the government, their publicly-funded clerks posing as experts, and the media, don't differentiate between the serious and the mundane.

Fear is the key to power and control. Too many Australians are too frightened to realise this - and they don't notice that the tyrannical laws and abuse by governments and officials appear to be solving nothing. Two years this has been going on!

Now, we all "need" booster shots, despite the fact that the vaccinated are being treated the same as the unvaccinated. What next!

Things will never again be the same in Australia, and petrified Australians have allowed the change to occur: even praising and thanking the new tinpot dictators in, mainly, state administrations.

So sure of Australian's inability to look after themselves the ABC and its pet "relationships counsellors" are, they are predicting that family relationships will break down because families are not capable of "navigating" Covid vaccination decisions.

What's to 'navigate' when it comes to getting yourselves and kids vaccinated!

The Australian Counsellors Association thinks that you should pay their members to guide you. Whatever you do, don't make your own decisions in the Nanny State. Whether it's hayfever, Alzheimer's, cancer or Covid, there's always someone looking to make a dollar out of you.

A new study of British cases by the Imperial College suggests Omicron is five times more likely to reinfect than Delta
The study, which is not yet peer-reviewed, says there is no evidence yet that Omicron cases are milder than Delta, but some say it is too early to know.
Results suggest that two-dose vaccines offer little protection against Omicron infection.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/omicron-5-4-times-more-likely-to-reinfect-than-delta-study-20211218-p59inn.html

Dear Paul,

I completely agree with your first post.

In your second post you ask:
«In the case of Covid how would you propose Australians look after their own health? To replace existing governments with who, those now in oppersition who agreed with the actions taken. Who then?»

Well, it is a bit late, once a pandemic hits and an urgent response is needed when the only mechanism in existence are states and their governments.

Clearly, the people of the land have every right to protect themselves from infectious diseases, including by preventing potential carriers from coming near them. It is a source of great pain that, this important function could only be carried (until recently) by government and also a source of great pain that this government had now pulled the rug under us, neither protecting us any longer nor allowing us to protect ourselves (all this as you say, due to their greed).

There are no other mechanisms IN EXISTENCE.
Nothing we can do about COVID-19, but we need to design new mechanisms before the next pandemic.
So long as government exists (whichever, petty political changes make no difference), it would not allow the people of the land to take their protection into their own hands. The only way we can truly protect ourselves, also the only way to avoid being thrown to the dogs (as just happened) once government greed takes precedence over our protection, is to rid ourselves of states and governments.

And the first step in this journey, at least, is to get rid of this beast of commonwealth ruling us from Canberra so that individual states/territories can protect their populations independently.

Australian governments have adopted the Communist Chinese social credit system. If we are good, and do this, that, and the other, they will reward us by returning freedoms and privileges they undemocratically took away from us.

While Morrison has been gabbling about 'getting government out of people's lives', he has overseen the worst loss of freedom and abuse ever to occur in Australia. He blames the states, of course, but he is the person who gave them draconian powers via the ridiculous, unconstitutional national 'cabinet'.

Covid passports. Check-ins. Surveillance. House arrest. Detention in unhealthy, stale, closed up hotel rooms. Even prisoners in solitary get regular exercise outdoors.

The only difference between us and the Chinese is that we, with our experience of democracy, have allowed this to happen. The Chinese haven't had democracy. What a cowardly bunch of pissants we are.

Dear Ttbn,

«he has overseen the worst loss of freedom and abuse ever to occur in Australia.»

Vietnam, Conscription? Have you forgotten?

There has been abuse, yes. SOME of the public-health measures were not commensurate with the danger and had more humane (but possibly more financially expensive) alternatives. At the same time, other public-health measures were not enough and too feeble to be effective. Yes, this was anything but democratic, yet comparing this to the horrors of China is just ridiculous, in fact words like this serve to legitimate the Communist Chinese regime - is this what you were trying to achieve?

So what the hell was it all for?

There are so many answers to this initial question
being asked on this discussion. And finding agreement
is going to be difficult at the best of times.

Lockdowns are costly. They damage businesses and
livilihoods. Is our economy more important than
people's lives? There does seem to be broad consensus
among epidemiologists that the strategy of elimination
with hard and early lockdowns until the population if
fully vaccinated is the best approach.

"Living with the virus" is risky possibly because an
increase in hospitalisation would threaten to overwhelm
the health system and this would end up being more costly.

Australia has done well with its strategy of elimination
achieved through border controls and lockdowns.
Hopefully this will continue as people get vaccinated.

Dear Hasbeen,

A simple question mate with a bloody simple answer. The lockdowns and disruption were to get us to a place where over 90% vaccination rates help protect the vast majority of our population and help to manage the strain on our health system.

And thanks largely to our State Premiers, except for the one who has just gone off the rails, Australia's Covid toll sits at just 80 per 1,000,000 of the population.

The UK sits at 2,157 and the US at 2,450. Based on the UK figures we could have had well over 50,000 dead already.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_death_rates_by_country

With Covid, Scott Morrison avoided confrontation - abandoned leadership - and established the 'national cabinet', removing the democratic oversight essential to the Westminster system by disempowering his own cabinet and backbench, but empowering Leftist state premiers.

Combined with his betrayal on zero emissions, Morrison is looking more and more like a slice of toast leading up to the election, which will please the opposition which, let's face it, is very little worse than the government. The opposition hasn't improved their image; but the Coalition has come down to their level.

One commentator recently wrote: " … in the absence of significant cultural changes it is unlikely that Australia will be substantially different in two decades if the Coalition are in government for a majority of the time as opposed to Labor. The Coalition has been in government at the federal level for around 75 per cent of the time since World War Two, but we are nevertheless where we are today".

Just as it has taken many decades for the left to transform and denigrate Australian society and culture, so it will take time to rebuild.

It's a terrible pity that there are no politicians currently capable of rebuilding.

Dear Foxy,

«"Living with the virus" is risky possibly because an
increase in hospitalisation would threaten to overwhelm
the health system and this would end up being more costly.»

So as long as everyone can get a hospital bed, everything is fine and we should be living happily with the virus?
Is that the whole issue? all the hell it was about - sufficient hospital beds?

Let anyone who thinks so, spend the rest of their days as happily they want, in hospital...

educated in compromise.
diver dan,
Yes, because that's what our so-called 'Democracy' dictates !

The scaremongers just put out a boring list of 'cases', which could be anything from a sniffle to no symptoms at at all. If people didn't line up for hours to be tested like the poor slavish fools that they are, the only real cases would be those hospitalised or dead. We would then be better of and not bothered all the time by the dangerous, power-mad idiots stuffing up the country - the ones who never reveal how the results of these so-called Covid tests differ from the ordinary 'flu, which hasn't had mention since Covid, the common cold, or other mild respiratory problems. If things are really as 'bad' now, what is it going to be like in winter! All you scaredy cats might as well go to bed and wait to die.

SR, you have bobbed up again. Any word on how Sweden is strolling along nicely with Covid Omicron whereas israel and others are literally filling their pants in fear with far more cases?

Media headline this morning blares that 'omicron demands more restrictions' as if a strain of a wog has purpose and personality. Even our jellybelly politicians are not panicking or trying to panic us over a strain that even "experts" don't know much about.

What is our worst enemy. The weak political class or the powerful anything-for-a-headline-and-damn-the-consequences media.

Just had a rare listen to the ABC's The World Today, with a Scary Mary reporting the worst stuff she could find on Covid and interviewing "experts" only their mothers have heard of. No dissenting voices, of course.

What was it all about?

There's an old saying derived from the Watergate story that to find the answer you should "follow the money".

Who did best out of the panic?

1. The medical multinationals have all made enormous profits from the various vaccines (funded by government) and the sale of masks etc. It is said that each 'test' costs government $100 - there have been 24million tests done in NSW alone since the scare started.

2. The credentialled class have done very well out of the lockdowns and handouts. Not a single public servant in the entire country lost a cent. Most white collar workers likewise. The real losers were the working class and private business owners. So rather than suffering in the lockdowns, those who made the decisions prospered, especially in comparison to the fellow citizens. "It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong." Thomas Sowell

3. No government lost office during the panic. Based on opinion polls, pretty much all governments prospered as the populace sought safety provided by the authorities. Why wouldn't government embrace lockdowns when it meant more support. While 'saving' the populace, governments managed to massively increase their powers.

That's what the hell it was all about. Sadly that was obvious back in March last year but the majority are only just waking up to it.

Dear mhaze,

Rubbish.

It was about saving the 50,000 Australian lives and the hundreds of thousands who would have been blighted with long Covid if we had opened up like you had wished. I would happily see all the Premiers including Gladys get a gong for what they have achieved no thanks to a blinker, bumbling and beholden to big business PM.

Morrison claimed credit for saving 30,000 lives. All BS of course. There is no evidence that anywhere near that many lives needed saving. Computer models are not evidence. There is no evidence that anymore other than the relevantly few who have died (the old and the infirm) would have died if all the lockdowns and other freedom-sapping tyranny had never occurred.

It is is hard to decide whether the people praising our political class and puppeteers are merely extreme Marxists and control freaks or if they are clinically insane.

Sorry SR but you have zero* credibility on this issue, most definitely as regards trying to do these calculations.

Let's remember this is the bozo who tried to calculate the flu deaths in the US for under 50's and got it wrong by 300%. This is also the bozo who tried to do the same calculation for Australia and got it wrong by 57000% (yep...fifty-seven thousand percent).

And then, as if trying to demonstrate that he'd learned nothing and intended to keep it thus, he predicts that WuFlu deaths in NSW would be in the thousands by the end of October. Of course he was wrong by several hundred percent YET AGAIN. At least that time he was embarrassed enough to exit the group for a month or so, in order to avoid having to own up to that bit of moronosity.

So now we have the numeric illiterate SR trying to work out how many were supposedly saved via the lockdowns. So the 'thinking' goes like this - if we DIDN'T lockdown then we would have had the same death rate as those locations who DID lockdown. Huh? Yes, its completely illogical but SR will never understand that.

* the concept of 'zero' is relatively new in western thinking. Given your innumeracy, I'm unsure if you understand that concept.

Dear mhaze,

Lol.

Again with the Trump style assigning your weakness to others in order to deflect from your numeracy issues.

Your approach to statistics has always been:

"I see people wearing winter coats and hats. What a bunch of sheep! LOL! I did my own research and found out that only 1500 people die from hypothermia in the US per year. That's only 0.0005% of the population. They live in fear of something that 99.9995% of people won't die from. It gets better, a lot of the people who died from hypothermia were wearing coats and hats, and they still died! Coats don't work!"

Remember your recent gem about predicting there would be only 2 deaths from Covid in NSW when there had already been 9.

This really is a mental block issue for you isn't it. Prediction after prediction biting the dust. Ah well cheer up, we can all get it wrong sometimes, you just seem to do it more often than most.

"Remember your recent gem about predicting there would be only 2 deaths from Covid in NSW when there had already been 9."

Not true. Completely false. More unethical SR behaviour. Show me the post where I made this alleged error.

I should also point out that the quote you put in quotes is completely false and not a quote from me at all. You know that but try to fudge it.

I can't help but notice that you don't refute the moronic errors I listed, just try to change the subject. You are beyond pity.

Since I asked for evidence of the claims you made, here's the evidence of the errors I previously listed.....
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=9530#321781

and then, having made a mockery of the lack of logic in SR's earlier post, he tries to run and hide....again.

Talked with a young mother yesterday who refuses the jab, refuses to wear a mask but doesn't refuse her single mothers' pension !
She reckons she doesn't want to poison herself by re-breathing in her exhaled breath caught by a mask.
Maybe she should be offered a job in a dusty environment & be barred from the Centrelink office ?

As I suspected, the scaremongering control freaks are now calling for fully vaccinated to mean two plus a booster, or triple vaccination. I can't see the lunacy ever ending. And, we will be treated just the same even when we start looking like pin cushions.

Indy, a Centrelink friend. Do you two meet every fortnight to compare pensions?

So now our new chief medical officer is telling us we have to let the pandemic spread, so it can become endemic. So what the hell was it all for?

God knows, & I'm sure he is not telling all the ratbags that locked us up for months. We really need a huge enclosure in the middle of the Simpson desert where we can stick all these people who think they know it all, & have some right to order the rest of us around. We could also lock up those who have made known successful treatments illegal.

May be a bronze of dictator Dan on the gate post, to remind us what to do with idiot demigods.

Has anyone heard an apology from all those who got it so wrong, or they hoping this new direction will prove just as disastrous as the lock ups were, & we will forget their stuff up.

Hassy, you're big on concentration camps. No they didn't get it wrong, vaccination reduces the severity of Covid to a mild infection in the vast majority of cases. A booster will only add to that protection.