Australia uses helicopters and the ARMY to enforce its 'Zero Covid' lockdown

[Paidiske]

Oh, I agree that the whole situation has taken a toll, and speaking personally, I'm not surprised, or even terribly affronted, by the protests. But I thought Americans might not appreciate how different our overall experience has been, and how highly motivated most Australians are to keep it that way.

Our government has botched the vaccine rollout on a number of levels. But perversely, it hasn't helped that because we have had very low incidence of infection, people have felt safe enough to postpone getting vaccinated. Every time there are new cases, suddenly vaccination rates go up...

We have the conspiracy theorists and antivaxx nutcases here too (I'm not talking about people who have reasonable hesitancy, or who are understandably confused, but people who have just completely drunk the kool-aid and are spouting absolute nonsense), but I am hoping that in the end they will prove to be a very small (if noisy) minority.

(My doctor and I were talking yesterday about the problem of people being ignorant about vaccines; I think part of the problem is that it's not taught in high school science, so if you don't go on to tertiary study in the field, you literally know nothing about how and why vaccines work, or why you should get yourself and your kids vaccinated. I was ranting that they spend a term on optics in year nine (before science becomes optional) - optics! Like most people are ever going to need to know about Snell's law! - but don't explain the basics of immunological memory. And then we wonder how we got to where we are...)

 

[Trogdor the Burninator]

I was ranting that they spend a term on optics in year nine (before science becomes optional) - optics! Like most people are ever going to need to know about Snell's law! - but don't explain the basics of immunological memory. And then we wonder how we got to where we are...)

Swap the two and we'll end up trading anti-vaxxers for flat earthers!

 

[Paidiske]

Right now I'd almost take that deal.

 

[Trogdor the Burninator]

Yes we do have trouble understanding how a police state is a functional society. Something about the fact that we pledged alliance to liberty, no doubt.

What liberty apparently looks like...

 

[Trogdor the Burninator]

Right now I'd almost take that deal.

I'd wager there's an awful lot of overlap in that particular venn diagram.

 

[renniks]

What liberty apparently looks like...

The Police response to total anarchy somehow equals the response to people not wearing face rags?

 

[Paidiske]

The problem with the Sydney protests was not the question of masks, but the question of gathering in large numbers during a lockdown, during a state of emergency.

Lockdowns have been strictly enforced here. And that is because they have been effective. In Australia, fewer than a thousand people in total have died of Covid-19. In America, you're looking at 613,000, give or take some rounding. Okay, your population is an order of magnitude greater, but still...

 

[Trogdor the Burninator]

The Police response to total anarchy somehow equals the response to people not wearing face rags?

is that how they justify beating up members of the press filming a protest, and shooting into people’s homes because they were filming the army driving down their street?

Must be that “liberty” thing I keep hearing about.

 

[Tanj]

The Police response to total anarchy somehow equals the response to people not wearing face rags?

Taking a photo and standing on your own porch are total anarchy now? This from the guy that made a pledge to liberty.

 

[renniks]

Taking a photo and standing on your own porch are total anarchy now? This from the guy that made a pledge to liberty.

I'm not familiar with the incident, but you seem to be picking the exception, not the rule. In most cases, police here have been forced to use less force.

 

[Bradskii]

The Police response to total anarchy somehow equals the response to people not wearing face rags?

Cameraman being beaten with a shield by a masked policeman in riot gear versus 'Excuse me, sir. Could you step this way to the bus that will take you to the quarantine hotel?'

Are you in any way serious?

 

[Tanj]

I'm not familiar with the incident

Might I asked why you labelled photos of the incident "total anarchy" if you are not familiar with it?

but you seem to be picking the exception, not the rule.

Let's put this in context shall we.
In NSW, a single police helicopter did a fly over.
The daily fail painted an "apocalypse now" scenario of dystopian martial law
Numerous Americans in this thread jumped in saying how dreadful that is
We pointed out worse happenings are easily found in your country...ironically exactly matching the non existent scenario in Australia that was being railed against.

And finally, this "exception not the rule" happened in the country that pledges itself to liberty.

Here's a bunch of photos of our entirely unarmed army on the streets.
australian defense force NSW covid - Google Search

 

[Bradskii]

I'm not familiar with the incident, but you seem to be picking the exception, not the rule. In most cases, police here have been forced to use less force.

Well, some of us are very familiar with the incident as they were Australian journalists. If that had happened here there'd be a public outcry, people would be held to account and heads would roll. I'd suggest that you're not familiar with because quite probably it's par for the course for you and journalists being beaten up by police didn't rate as being newsworthy.

But you might remember that the area was cleared of peaceful protestors so that some guy from the Whitehouse could wave a bible around in front of St Johns. Maybe you saw that...

 

[Tanj]

Well, some of us are very familiar with the incident as they were Australian journalists. If that had happened here there'd be a public outcry, people would be held to account and heads would roll. I'd suggest that you're not familiar with because quite probably it's par for the course for you and journalists being beaten up by police didn't rate as being newsworthy.

But you might remember that the area was cleared of peaceful protestors so that some guy from the Whitehouse could wave a bible around in front of St Johns. Maybe you saw that...

I love the smell of tear gas in the morning. It smells like...liberty.

 

[coffee4u]

That's a valid point...

Perspective is everything...

The idea that the military would start patrolling my neighborhood because of a daily case count of 300 in my state of 11 million people is practically unthinkable.

Although, on the flip side, that bubble had to burst at some point.

On the flip side, rolling lockdowns can only exist for so long (even in a nation where many people had the best of intentions and sense of altruism) before people start to lose their sanity a bit.

Constant lockdowns and restrictions and shifting goals are going to make a lot of people rebellious after a certain point.

This has been going on for well over a year now... it eventually takes a toll on peoples' mental health, and at a certain point, I can empathize with the person who says "enough of this, I can't take it anymore, I just want to get back on with my life, I don't care if I get sick".

Hopefully you guys can get some more vaccine doses soon...I didn't realize that Australia only had 15% of people fully vaccinated...for some reason, I just assumed it would be more.

We have idiots here who refuse to take it, despite the fact that we have adequate doses and businesses all over the place with "free vaccine: no appointment needed" signs up.

There are people in other countries who would love to get protected from it...here, we can't get some people to take it, even offering them a $25 gift card at the store they're literally walking into to buy something.

Funny/Sad story, I went to a Best Buy (popular tech/electronics chain here in the US) to pick up a new graphics card for my gaming PC (that finally was back in stock after all the wanna-be bitcoin millionaires killed the GPU market)... a large local hospital system had a stand set up offering a $25 best buy gift card for getting a vaccine on the way in... people walked right by it, one even saying "<expletive deleted>, I'm not lettin' them put chemicals in me for $25"

That's what we're dealing with here.

We can handle things differently due to our very low population. The land mass of the US and Australia is not that different but the population is vastly different. The US has
328.2 million people (2019)Australia has 25.36 million (2019) To put that into even more perspective there are more people in the state of Texas (29 million 2019) than our entire population.

This is why we can track people or do deep cleaning of any business found to have had Covid. Low populations and wide open spaces and these measures has helped keep Covid low, but also why a thousand cases is a really big deal. In my state 1 case is seen as news.

 

[coffee4u]

The idea that the military would start patrolling my neighborhood because of a daily case count of 300 in my state of 11 million people is practically unthinkable.

My entire state-which is huge has a total of 5.185 million people. There are more roos and sheep here then people.

 

[FireDragon76]

Oh, I agree that the whole situation has taken a toll, and speaking personally, I'm not surprised, or even terribly affronted, by the protests. But I thought Americans might not appreciate how different our overall experience has been, and how highly motivated most Australians are to keep it that way.

Our government has botched the vaccine rollout on a number of levels. But perversely, it hasn't helped that because we have had very low incidence of infection, people have felt safe enough to postpone getting vaccinated. Every time there are new cases, suddenly vaccination rates go up...

We have the conspiracy theorists and antivaxx nutcases here too (I'm not talking about people who have reasonable hesitancy, or who are understandably confused, but people who have just completely drunk the kool-aid and are spouting absolute nonsense), but I am hoping that in the end they will prove to be a very small (if noisy) minority.

(My doctor and I were talking yesterday about the problem of people being ignorant about vaccines; I think part of the problem is that it's not taught in high school science, so if you don't go on to tertiary study in the field, you literally know nothing about how and why vaccines work, or why you should get yourself and your kids vaccinated. I was ranting that they spend a term on optics in year nine (before science becomes optional) - optics! Like most people are ever going to need to know about Snell's law! - but don't explain the basics of immunological memory. And then we wonder how we got to where we are...)

Here in the US, I do remember learning about vaccines in school, but optics... no.

The real problem in the US are down to things like low trust in social institutions and critical thinking not being taught much in schools.

 

[Philip_B]

OK. I live 10 Kilometers outside the lock down area. Half the people who attend our local Church therefore can't at the moment. The Lockdown in Greater Sydney began on the 26th of June 2021. Despite the lockdown and a series of other measures, the case number have continued to rise and seem to be levelling out at around 200 new cases per day. The chances are, based on modelling, that the case count could easily be ten times that without the measures in place, none the less we have not as yet shut down the current outbreak.

300 regular soldiers have been deployed to assist police and other services during the period. Their tasks will be largely involved in setting up temporary testing centres, vaccination centres, and following up on the welfare of those who are forced to isolate as a result of exposure. Compliance with Public Health Orders is a matter for the normal Police Force, not the Army.

Part of the permit of living in a free society is that we act, where possible, for the common good. If that means staying at home for a while, so be it. If it means wearing a mask for a while, well that better than a respirator. We used to have Plagues and Pestilence, and now we call them Pandemics.

The two factors that contribute to the spread of the virus are the Density of the Population, and the Density of the People. Our weapons are, Hygiene, Masks, Social Distancing, Isolation, Quarantine, and Vaccination. We don't need to make this any harder.

 

[renniks]

But you might remember that the area was cleared of peaceful protestors so that some guy from the Whitehouse could wave a bible around in front of St Johns. Maybe you saw that.

That's not what happened, but you are way off the subject. One has no relation to the other.

 

[Bradskii]

That's not what happened....

You said you didn't know what happened. It was broadcast news. All channels. All papers covered it. I just told you about it. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff apologised about it. There was an official complaint by Australia and even a Congressional hearing.

But of course, if you say that something you said you weren't aware of never happened then I guess it didn't.