Bad news from the brainiacs looking at the Iceland experience, where 93% of the population is vaccinated yet which is experiencing a massive spike in infections. Infections, but no deaths.
Is this the future of COVID? Wave after wave of non-fatal infection? Eventually, the entire human race in decline because of “long COVID”?
According to virologist Professor Tony Cunningham, there is an “unpleasant lesson” ahead for us here in Australia. “The 20 percent of people who don’t get immunised now cannot rely on the rest of us to protect them… Biden’s right, it’s becoming a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated’.“
Another “unpleasant lesson” lies ahead, now that Delta has escaped into rural areas. There’s always been mistrust between urban and rural folk. You stand out like dog’s balls by the clothes you wear, the car you drive, they way you talk. I stop for a pie in Bathurst, which is not even country-country, and it’s always “Sydney, eh?” at the register.
In fact, our rural outbreak is a “nightmare scenario” given how poorly vaccinated and resourced they are. It’s not just vulnerable Aboriginal communities at grave risk (again, thanks whitey), it’s the hillbillys too. If metropolitan Sydney is at 50% vaccinated, the bush is probaby 10%.
The 10% figure comes down to politics. Not just conservative farmers doggedly hanging onto their conspiracy theories, but urban Sydney politics. Because a few weeks ago our Premier stole their vaccines en masse, saying Year 12 students in Sydney needed them more.
Yep.
How to drive another wedge between city and country.
And what if more of those vaccines were stolen from Australian Labor Party electorates than Liberal-National Party electorates? That would be a colossal news story — especially if a bunch of LNP politicians happen to have Y12 kids in Sydney right now…
This after the “accidental vaccination” of the entire Y12 cohort at St Joseph’s College with the sought-after Pfizer. Our brutish Health Minister had the gall to attack the media, saying “You know what? There was a mistake and so what? It’s happened. Out of a million vaccinations. Move on.”
When the ‘ring of steel’ relaxes and I can escape to the mountains, I’ll be back on my favourite river panning for gold. Bathurst will take my pie-and-petrol money, no doubt, but their reaction to my red SUV will be like I’m the harbinger of some zombie horde.
“Sydney bastard!”
Save it for Gladys, hillbilly.
But I am keen to get out. Like everyone else, I’m sick of this. And because I’m officially isolating after a close-contract, I’m even more confined. I can’t leave to exercise, or buy groceries, nothing. I can’t believe shut-ins do this by choice.
Must be fucked in the head.
So my ambitious plan today is to do some housework, maybe retire outside and sit in our dappled garden reading a book. Mid-afternoon, I may enjoy a tipple and keep reading. The only big decision I’ll need to make is, which book?
Only nine days to go.