So I’ve been very quiet on the covid-front, apart from the odd reference to certain YouTubers, partly because this is primarily supposed to be a blog focussed on Christian dating and relationships, and partly because we can’t seem to go anywhere without encountering news about covid.
Frankly I’m sick to death of it, but I felt a moral imperative to write something about the lockdowns, which have moved into outright tyranny, in my view, and I think it’s important to share this. Here’s an article I had recently published in Mercatornet:
The case of Sarah Caisip is a lesson for us all.
In the world of Covid-19, it is now a criminal offence to attend your own father’s funeral – if attending requires you to break quarantines and border restrictions.
As someone who recently lost my own mother, I know precisely how crucial it is to be able to farewell such a loved one, and to seek solace and comfort in fellow grieving family members.
This poor, poor woman was not only unable to be with her father during those last, precious moments of his life – she was kept out of his funeral and away from her mother and sister like some unclean 14th century plague victim.
Reading about how this healthy young woman has been treated by the Queensland Government, and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in particular, makes my blood boil.
These are moments you can never, ever get back.
Being able to sit by my mother’s bedside during her final hours; being present at her funeral with my family members; watching her body being buried and being comforted by my loved ones – these are not just vital experiences in processing grief, they are among the most fundamental human rights. They ought to be completely inviolable.
But here they are, being violated.
What’s worse, the justifications used to violate them are becoming increasingly and overwhelmingly questionable.
In the authoritarianism running rampant in places like Victoria and Queensland, in the skyrocketing rates of anxiety, depression and even suicide, in the lost livelihoods and multigenerational businesses facing ruin, one question I’m not hearing nearly often enough is “why?”
Why, exactly, are we allowing our basic rights and freedoms to be snatched away from us? Why are we destroying small and medium businesses and nuking our economies? Why are we condemning thousands to catastrophic mental health conditions?
Why are we lying down and taking it so easily? And why are we all behaving as though state-wide lockdowns are perfectly normal occurrences?
Apparently, we’re doing all this to stop the spread of a virus that, even according to the most dire estimates, has at minimum a 97 percent survival rate. A virus which needs, on average, two or three comorbidities to actually prove fatal to the vast majority of cases, according to new data from the American CDC.
Some of my dearest friends, particularly those in Victoria, are living a form of hell on earth right now, and they’re not alone – relationship breakdowns, work breakdowns, depression, loneliness and serious physical health decline are emerging all around us.
If you still believe we’re going the right way about dealing with this virus, you need to wake up.
“But people will die!” you might say. This is a pandemic – of course people are going to die. And we have a duty to do all we can to protect those most vulnerable, especially in our nursing homes and aged care facilities, many of which have been shockingly neglected throughout this situation.
But this does not mean punishing people for eating lunch alone on park benches, arresting pregnant women in their homes for Facebook posts or, indeed, preventing people from attending their loved ones’ funerals.
These are all scandalous violations of our most fundamental human rights.
Personally, I wouldn’t care if this virus had a 90 or even an 80 percent survival rate – our human rights should be inviolable no matter what.
We should all be free to assess the risks for ourselves and to act accordingly. If people are scared, let them stay home. If they want to go out to work, or to gather with friends, or attend a concert, let them.
I’ll add my voice to a prediction many others have made: 2020 will go down in history as the most unprecedented overreaction to a medical crisis humanity has ever faced. (Come back to me in 30 years if I’m wrong.)
If we don’t stop and take stock of what we’re sacrificing in our frenzy to defeat Covid-19, we’ll discover that our “cure” has, in fact, been worse than the disease.
Agony and Hope 
I think the issue here is an issue of priority. Here, you’re highlighting the priority of mental health, and being able to mourn. On the other hand, we have the priority of humans being alive. Because, quite simply, the less restrictions we have, the more people will die. This has been clearly demonstrated by other countries that have been much less strict with their lockdowns, where dozens, or hundreds, of people are dying every day.
And yes, people usually die every day. But we work to do what we can to prevent those deaths, we don’t just say that it’s fine and go on with our lives. These are the measures necessary to prevent deaths. It’s as simple as that.
And yes, it’s hard. And yes, it’s difficult not being able to do things like be at funerals, or at weddings, or hearing about families separated from each other. And we’ll deal with those on an individual basis as those circumstances arise. But the alternative is literally death.
Part of the problem is that many people suggesting that these lockdowns are too excessive are people who think that the virus will never affect them – they’re young, they’re healthy, they’ll be fine! But many people won’t be. Many people are vulnerable, because of their age, or pre-existing conditions. And even with the lockdowns we have, many people have been lost, and many people are mourning. We need to be thankful right now that we’re not looking like America, or India, or Brazil, who have each had days with over a thousand deaths reported. We need to be thankful that we can head towards a time when some of these restrictions can be lifted, because we’ve done so well. Many countries around the world are not so fortunate.
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There’s actually no substantive proof that lockdowns do anything to prevent the spread: https://www.spectator.com.au/2020/09/has-sweden-really-pulled-it-off/
And just to clarify, I didn’t say we should do nothing to prevent deaths. I said nursing homes should be given top priority for protection from disease (they count for almost half of the entire death count in countries like the US), but that locking down everyone statewide, particularly in the arbitrary way we’ve seen, is problematic and, imo, inherently immoral. Check out this YouTube channel for a funny, satirical take on everything wrong with the mainstream media narrative: https://www.youtube.com/user/AwakenWithJP
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J P Sears- talk about out of control- His very funny ,Anna. Having said that, there is a serious side. He has a short skit that is not only illuminating ,but delivers great insight and understanding in regard to making sense of the complexity imbedded in depression. This really is worth a look see! And on top of that, at the other end of the spectrum, and I must say, I’m not sure how much oleaginous behaviour your sense of humour can bare – but his episode on spirituality, is to say the least, a great take on a take……Yes even ‘ehh’ has a funny side!
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https://thehill.com/policy/international/europe/529606-icus-in-stockholm-reach-99-percent-capacity-report
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Thank you for your intriguing article Anna. Sarah Caisip’s case is so sad and it’s disheartening to think our authorities couldn’t/wouldn’t take her individual circumstance into account. We’re only dealing with a relatively small population here in Australia.
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Here in Illinois a man pulls a wagon around while crying “bring out your dead!” Some aren’t even dead yet when they get tossed on to the wagon.
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Political diseases – of which HIV is sacrosanct
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I’m interested in your views on this since the success of the Victorian lockdowns. Has your opinion changed following evidence of the effectiveness of this action?
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Hi Gay,
My position on this hasn’t changed, nor is it likely to as I oppose statewide lockdowns on moral grounds, as outlined above.
In relation to the Victorian lockdown (or any lockdown, for that matter), the evidence that large-scale lockdowns make any difference to viral spread is extremely questionable, if not negligible, given that the rate of spread has followed a virtually identical pattern in most countries overseas, regardless of whether they locked down or not, all peaking around April/May and steadily declining since. Adam Creighton has tweeted extensively on this.
However, even if it were indisputably proven statewide lockdowns did make a difference, it wouldn’t change my position, for the simple reason that the removal of basic human freedoms and rights, as well as the untold damage and death caused by the mindless pursuit of “stopping the spread” or eliminating the virus, or whatever the goal is this month, are completely unjustifiable.
Even if the deaths of the sick and elderly (covid’s overwhelming group of victims) were spared by these statewide lockdowns, the restrictions have been, and will doubtless continue to be, responsible for numerous – perhaps even countless – other deaths and human misery. Eg the South Australian babies who could and should have received life-saving care under any other circumstances, but who were barred entry to Victoria (against all reason and common sense) “because of covid”; the children who were, at least initially, prevented by the QLD government from seeing their dying father in his last days on this earth “because of covid”; the suicides, skyrocketing decline in mental health which will inevitably result in even more suicides and misery, domestic violence-related incidents, not to mention the inevitable increase in cancer-related deaths due to a significant reduction in cancer screening tests, either because some hospitals and countries, scandalously, ceased them entirely, or because everyone has been so frightened out of their wits they have neglected to seek the medical testing and treatment that they need. Many doctors have testified to this, and we all know early diagnosis is often crucial to cancer survival. There will be other lockdown-related deaths but these are the main ones worth mentioning.
It’s also worth mentioning that in America, 2020 has seen the biggest jump in deaths of young people that we’ve seen in decades. We know young people are not dying from covid at any meaningful rates, so one could reasonably make the assumption that these lockdowns are not really “saving lives” on the whole, but rather, we are merely exchanging some lives for others, and more often than not, the lives of the young and healthy for those of the sick and the elderly.
I know this doesn’t necessarily cover every single covid victim, but the overwhelming majority are very old and often medically compromised.
Obviously, all life is precious and each person has inherent dignity and worth, but the loss of so much young, healthy life is, I think, a far greater tragedy than that of those who had lived very nearly their full span of years. This is not even going into the question of whether many of these sick and elderly even have a say in whether they would rather risk getting covid and being able to spend their final years with their loved ones instead of being forced into isolation from all that they hold dear “for their own good”.
Dan Andrews accuses those who defy his restrictions of “killing grandma” (an ironic statement from someone who rigorously supports euthanasia) but has anyone actually bothered to ask the grandmas and grandpas out there what they want? If you were living in a nursing home or retirement centre, which would you prefer? To be able to spend what time you have left with those you love and risk dying earlier, or to be told you must spend an undetermined amount of time isolated and alone because it will probably keep you alive for a few more years? I know what I’d choose.
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Anna ,I totally agree, it’s a moral issue , people’s lives are better lived and sustained in hope, even when living alongside perchance and prospect of death. William Shakespeares-Hamlet. The first Quarto – is succinct.
“To be or not to be , Ay there’s the point,
To Die to sleep ,is that all? Aye all:
No to sleep, to dream , aye marry there it goes,
For in that dream of death, when we awake,
And borne before an everlasting Judge,
From whence no passenger ever returned,
The undiscovered country at whose sight
The happy smile and the accursed damn’d.
But for this, the joyful hope of this,
Who’d bear the scorns and flattery of the world,
Scorned by the right rich, the rich cursed of the poor?
The widow being oppressed, the orphaned wrong’d
The taste of hunger, or a tyrants reign,
And a thousand more calamities besides,
To grunt and sweat under this weary life,
When that he may his full Quietus make,
With a bare bodkin, who would this endure,
But for a hope of something after death?
Which puzzles the brain, and doth confound the sense,
Which makes us rather bear those evils we have,
Than fly to others we know not of.
Aye that, O this conscience makes cowards of us all,
Lady in thy Orizons, be all my sins remembered”.
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Hi Anna,
Thanks for your comprehensive response-I kept forgetting to check back into this page! Thanks also to HappChapy for your mammoth piece-I probably won’t get to respond to you properly, because I got a little bit lost with the Marxist stuff? I was probably coming more from a public health angle, so we might be on different pages.
I may have been unclear in the intent of my original question, which was this:
Do you think that the Victorian lockdown was a key factor in reducing the number of covid cases in that state?
I now understand, that even if you do believe this, that you would consider the rights of people to have unrestricted movement to be more important than stopping the spread of the virus. It’s difficult for me to understand this, as a nurse from an aged care background, but you are not alone in that belief; whose results are so clearly manifest now in the UK, Brazil, Sweden and the US. Those views seem really, really scary and irresponsible to me, but I do appreciate you taking the time to try and explain where you are coming from.
I’m really glad I live in WA.
All the best
Gay
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https://thehill.com/policy/international/europe/529606-icus-in-stockholm-reach-99-percent-capacity-report
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G’day ,Gay. I hope this doesn’t feel like gang up on Gay day. Gay I’d be interested know how you arrived at the assumption, that the Victorian lockdown (s?????) was a success. Can I presume that your response is based on financial consideration, did you factor in sanitising outcomes in concert with medical / nursing aseptic protocols, that includes wide ranging use of different personal protective equipment and tiered levels of aseptic engagement , preparedness and care?
Does your opinion of success take into account psychological a suicidal outcomes, political and administrative ‘oversight’ in regard to quarantine security service delivery ?- I’m thinking about the use of the Australian Defence Force (ADF), which was offered ‘politically’ at the federal level – was initially accepted , then declined ( there’s seems to have been a cerebral shift or was that the Victorian version of a change of heart) .To use an Australian jingoism , Victoria told the commonwealth to “hit the frog an toad”, in Mandarin is pronounced “belt and road”. My presumption is that the ADF would of had Australians, and Australia’s interests at heart ,at the very least! This may ‘well’ have been an oversight measure that again ,may well have insured and ensured compliance, with expected outcomes being ‘realised’ in regard to the stricture of quarantine procedure and by inference adherence to commonwealth federal law.
Gay, from a holistic healthcare perspective, were people’s wellbeing and Happiness factored in, or did they even play a part, or even considered a core component ,of the key performance indicators that is success? Did opinion in regard to the assumed success get a rating and ‘rate’ or rate highly amongst nursing home residents, or for that matter people in the mainstream populace?
Yes, the daily tested infection rate peaked at 7-800(WHY) , then plummeted to the noticeable level of background radio wave interference (Why) and how was this portrayed by Dan et al = bare in mind that in some sections of the media this was portrayed as another wave – the second wave if you like – which to put it mildly, is dishonest as it is deceptive and misleading. (FBD).
Gay, in comparison with/to other states ,how did Victoria rate as per infections . And with comparison how long did it take Vic to bring everything under control within comparison with other FIRST WAVE VIRAL AMPLITUDE spikes, and what were the amplitude variances comparatively speaking – were they even considered?
Did the Victorian Gov do a good job in the defence of protecting ordinary citizens basic rights and DEMOCRATIC EXPECTATIONS ,with regard to individual autonomy?as Gladys did for NSW.
I’m not sure at this point, of the figures off hand, but how many elderly people were dispatched / titrated out because of or with COVID 19 / SARS 2? If so, how many ,if any of these were advanced care directive titrations, and could these ACDs be considered a legal loop hole avenue of the state, divesting itself of its duty of care and expense legally ( don’t get me wrong there is a place for these ethically)?Was care withdrawn and at what ‘price’ ? How do we measure success?
As the late Pathologist Dr TB Lynch said with words ,the greatest mask at human disposal is our immune system, our white blood cells. Quality being our DNA- the good………success. As Anna alluded to, herd immunity accords nicely with most of the mainstream population. Is herd immunity to be considered antigen inoculation, and could it also be another sign of success in the long term horizon?
FIRST DO KNOW HARM- THAT IS JUSTICE IS IT NOT?- WAS JUSTICE SUCCESSFULLY ‘DELIVERED’ ? What do the figures say?
Finally Gay I would refer you to the nursing codes of conduct and ethics, which are state sanctioned guidelines for delivery of care- did the state Government of Victoria breach people’s and / patients expectations with regard to trust and expectation of care delivered with regard to quarantine rules and adherence, MANAGEMENT AND OUTCOMES?
Total infections in Oz to date as at 19/12/2020, 28128, of this Vic contributed 20354 – total deaths Oz wide ,908 of which Victoria’s contribution was 820 lives lost, source (health. gov.au). FURTHERMORE THIS SITE STATES “THAT THE MAJORITY OF INFECTIONS AND DEATHS ARE FROM VICTORIA” . Thank God ,At last we have some clarity.
This tells me that the lockdown in Vic from start to finish was an unparalleled humanitarian disaster. This accords nicely, and is in general accord with Marxist management of other people’s lives and freedoms.
This is what some would call a psychological side track. So what does the Marxist utopia look like. In the last 100 years or so, approximately 120 to 200 million people lives have been sacrificed on the altar of Marxism, in all it’s.guises . The basic modus operandi seems to be the destruction of life ( happiness, freedom and hope – a direct attack and assault on the human( humane) HEART). The destruction of life at any cost , be it abortion, ‘Alive’ late term abortion or whilst living euthanasia . These are all incremental progressive creeps ,toward control of the very nature of life itself -)does this explain the progressive seismic shift and the greening of politics? On top of this they now have legislated controls in place in regard to the actual placenta of life itself- a woman’s womb, and just like mathematical calculus they have given us the stuff they will allow us to see and think we need and want- at this point – please let me assure you there are diametric mirrored images and consequences about that Cartesian plane that as yet have yet to see the light of the day.
You get the feeling these ‘people’ aren’t happy unless their making other people’s lives a living misery. Funnily enough and ironically the very thing that Marxists hold dear to their rotten core – is their right to to freedom of expression and speech( they being very good at telling ‘everybody‘ else what they think and how others should live ‘their’( “HIS”) life.
In my opinion these people have very little idea of, or concept of the true needs and considerations and feelings of others( SELFISH- always comes to the barren mind) . And this I believe is how the state of Victoria under the stewardship of Marxists arrived at That successful number ( outcome).
To cap off, that most fair dinkum of Australians Cardinal George Pell in an interview after the unanimous high court decision of 7 nil with the Catholic Weekly’s Monica Doumit stated that “ the culture war’s are real of course”, never a truer word said. So where does Peace reign- in the truth of course. And that would lie outside the institutions of ,and the state of Victoria.
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Hi Anna,
Thanks for your comprehensive response-I kept forgetting to check back into this page! Thanks also to HappChapy for your mammoth piece-I probably won’t get to respond to you properly, because I got a little bit lost with the Marxist stuff? I was probably coming more from a public health angle, so we might be on different pages.
I may have been unclear in the intent of my original question, which was this:
Do you think that the Victorian lockdown was a key factor in reducing the number of covid cases in that state?
I now understand, that even if you do believe this, that you would consider the rights of people to have unrestricted movement to be more important than stopping the spread of the virus. It’s difficult for me to understand this, as a nurse from an aged care background, but you are not alone in that belief, whose results are so clearly manifest now in the UK, Brazil, Sweden and the US. Those views seem really, really scary and irresponsible to me, but I do appreciate you taking the time to try and explain where you are coming from.
I’m really glad I live in WA.
All the best
Gay
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‘Oh’ , come on Gay, I’m not a Mammoth, 😊 Although I am a white privileged Anglo male – who are all being pushed to the edge of relevance- therefore extinction awaits, however i did lumber on a bit towards my eventual inconsequential relevance – before being summarily dismissed. Furthermore my memories not perfect and I don’t have a big nose or long wavy hair and I’m not that tall(no ivory tower here) and I’m definitely no fan of the Cold. Off the top of my head however ,I could be a little prone ,to being self indulgent as shown in my zealous hunger to respond ,which led to my eventual demise.
As for the Marxist stuff, I totally agree , it’s hard to get your head around this type of indescribable (~)PAIN.
Gay, I also, was coming from a health care angle – PUBLIC AWARENESS. So Gay to that end ,where definitely on the same page, the ‘agony’ and ‘hope’ page, and we could well be both practicing social distancing 😊———😊 responsibly.
“ Do you think that the Victorian lockdown was a key factor in reducing the number of COVID cases in that state” . It’s black and white , Gay , in a word ,yes. There being no doubt that focusing on the lockdown hotspots, specifically Melbourne’s hotel quarantine precinct and suburban Melbourne’s multicultural enclaves where English is the second or third language and where those people clearly weren’t listening, was absolutely pivotal in arresting the momentum of the spread of COVID.
As for the right of people to have unrestricted movement, I was definitely not advocating the immorality of not doing the right thing as alluded to in the previous paragraph. I was and am in favour of ( moral freedoms)the moral freedom of personal autonomy which Gladys the premier of NSW allowed the people in that state to exercise that freedom with due care , all the while being mindful of the consequences of that responsibility , that’s all.
Having said that Gay, by way of comparison the labour Government of Western Oz had a much better lockdown response, actually it may well have been the best, second to the Northern Territory – they basically kept the rotten thing out in the first place – ( FIRST PLACE IS EQUALLY AND EQUITABLY THE BEST PLACE TO BE- UNLIKE VICTORIA WHICH IS JUST THE PLACE TO BE).
Ps, I love WA , the people are just so friendly. Just as wonderful is those long stretches of outback road, when one pulls over ,switches the engine off – the silence is deafening and truly bliss. And how can I forget that beautiful Catholic Church in Geraldton and long stretches of beach and it’s dunes, or the beauty and sleepy timelessness of the cemetery in Coolgardie- the truth be known .
Thanks Gay.
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Hi Gay,
Now it’s my turn to apologise to you for the late reply. Not that I think this needs to be continued ad infinitum, but I do feel a few words are necessary to defend my views against the charges of being ‘scary and irresponsible’.
Firstly, as I stated previously, if you take a look at a graph comparing the infection rates of countries and states which DID lock down, compared to those which didn’t, you’ll see that they follow a nearly identical pattern. Similarly when you look at a state like South Dakota, which has not locked down or enforced any measures like masks, compared to other states which did lock down, like New York, New Jersey and California, you’ll find that the latter three ended up with more deaths than South Dakota (I don’t have the raw numbers handy). Now, did South Dakota have more deaths than other states in the US? Yes, but this is all evidence to show that merely locking down, no matter how hard, seemingly makes little or no difference to how widespread covid becomes. If this were not the case, how, then, would there by far higher infection rates and deaths in New York – which locked down hard – than in South Dakota, which didn’t lock down at all?
It seems to be likelier that close crowding, an ageing population, and the general health of the citizens are far better indicators of how widespread covid will be and how many deaths will occur, whether or not you lock down. Consider, for example, that all of Victoria was locked down, including curfews, 5km-radius borders, only allowed out once per day, etc, etc, and yet everyone was expected to go grocery shopping at the same times. So you can’t stay out past 10pm, but you can, and in fact, you must, put yourself in very crowded conditions with everyone else, in an environment where objects are frequently and repeatedly touched. Does this make sense to you? Because it makes none to me.
Regarding the elderly, my position on this probably aligns very closely with yours. In fact, I am deeply outraged that so little care was shown to the elderly, and nursing home residents in particular, in places like New York, Ireland and elsewhere – where covid-infected people were put back into nursing homes from hospitals, where they went on to infect countless others. How many lives were lost because of stupid – or perhaps even malicious – policies like this? In New York, for example, Andrew Cuomo made it a condition that nursing home staff were not allowed to enquire whether those residents returning from hospital were still considered positive/infectious or not. This is outrageous! And now we’re seeing in the news that his administration undercounted the number of nursing home-related deaths by at least 50%.
My other source of outrage comes from the fact that politicians, many of whom, like Cuomo, are effectively responsible for the deaths of thousands, speak for the elderly (‘you’re killing grandma!’) – and yet not one (to my knowledge) has actually asked the elderly what THEY want. No one has given them the choice whether to take a risk or not.
My basic position – and I’ll wrap this up as it’s getting ridiculously long – is that covid is real, but our response has been wildly disproportionate. Not only in terms of how widespread, but how arbitrary the restrictions. Case in point: infected elderly men and women were put back into nursing homes, surrounded by the most vulnerable and killing hundreds of thousands of them, and yet healthy young children, who have a 99.99% survival rate, are not allowed to go to school.
When all is said and done, when we take into account the suicides, overdoses (both of which are completely off the charts) and lives that will be lost due to late or lack of cancer screenings, we will find that rather than saving lives, we’ve merely exchanged some lives for others.
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As a final note, Gay, if you consider yourself an open-minded person, I would encourage you to give this video a watch before making up your mind on anything that I – or anyone else – has said. That includes the doctor in this video, by the way. I hope you would agree that we all need to avail ourselves of as much information as possible, from more than one source, before making up our minds on anything: https://www.bitchute.com/video/Kj2LfFVoAexp/.
God bless you,
Anna
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One year later and the crazy lockdowns are still in force…or maybe even more in force than before. Did the Truckies’ protest do anything?
Australia just doesn’t seem to have the strong libertarian/anti-government impulse that we have here in the US. …in addition to 400,000,000 guns. I can’t imagine Australian/NZ-style practices being implemented here outside of some wacky progressive cities.
The behavior of the premiers of NSW and Victoria and the horse-faced thing from NZ is why every society needs a Second Amendment.
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