Is Australia going too far in its covid response? They're deploying the military now

[ansible]

Why is Australia acting like this? Imagine the shitstorm if this happened in the US

Australia has deployed hundreds of soldiers to Sydney to help enforce a Covid lockdown.

A Delta outbreak which began in June has produced nearly 3,000 infections and led to nine deaths.

Australian Defence Force soldiers will undergo training on the weekend before beginning unarmed patrols on Monday.

But many have questioned whether the military intervention is necessary, calling it heavy-handed.

The lockdown - in place until at least 28 August - bars people from leaving their home except for essential exercise, shopping, caregiving and other reasons.


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-58021718

[LisaL]

1. They want to prevent ending up like we are.

Up the creek without a paddle.

[Pobeka]

7. I think they want to prevent ending up like India.

Low vaccination rate. Delta completely has a foothold. Citizens don't understand how bad it can get and how fast.

So close to the finish line (with vaccinations starting to happen), makes sense for strong controls.

Good on them. Citizens will whine about it, but in a year be very grateful.

Definitely not heavy handed when you look at the India situation.

[LisaL]

8. We now have more covid infections daily than India.

NT

[Pobeka]

10. Haven't looked, do you know off the top of your head the max daily confirmed for India?

Don't go looking if you don't know, I'm just curious. I too have google.

[LisaL]

11. Around 44,000 daily.

NYT covid tracker shows us at 95,000 yesterday. We are rapidly increasing in covid cases, and are barely taking any precautions to stop it. We have allowed mass gathering, and so on.

[Pobeka]

13. At the peak, India was about 400k a day. That was about May 7.

It's hard to imagine they didn't have far more than that due to limited resources for testing etc.

We'll easily exceed our previous peak of 200k a day from last January. My hunch (aka just eyeballing it) is we'll be about 350k a day by the end of Aug/ first week of september.

[LisaL]

14. Yep, we are rapidly increasing in cases with everything remaining open,

and so we will keep rapidly increasing, since we are not willing to do lockdowns, mask mandates, closing businesses and so on. We are half-way to our previous peak already.

[Mysterian]

2. No, this is what a sane society does to protect its citizens

The anti-vax crazies and imbeciles are akin to zombies.

[LisaL]

4. Their vaccination rate is also still low, since their vaccine rollout

was slow. Their natural infection rate is pretty much non-existent, since they prevented big outbreaks from happening. So they don't have much of immunity. If they don't stop delta from spreading their death toll is going to be quite high.

[wnylib]

6. True. If they don't take extreme

measures now, they will end up like India.

[LisaL]

9. We are not doing so hot ourselves.

We had the most infections in the world last week, and presumably will continue to do so. Our infection rates are rapidly increasing, pretty much all over the country.

[wnylib]

15. But at least some of us are

vaccinated. Quite a lot of us compared to Australia. Their situation would be even worse than ours if they didn't crack down hard now.

[LisaL]

25. We also have a lot more "natural" immunity than they are, since we had so many infections.

So, for them, it would be even worse than here if they can't contain the outbreak.

[multigraincracker]

3. Lockdowns work.

Period.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. Yikes.

[Ace Rothstein]

12. A bit too dystopian for me.

There's a huge gulf between DeSantis/Abbott and Australia. Glad I don't live in either place.

[sanatanadharma]

16. Consider the Covid-19 public health struggle from a war and military mindset

The coronavirus is an invisible enemy that can only be defeated by staying home and doing nothing.
All the Blitz deniers and black-out defiers do is drag out the danger and waste weeks in the war.

Soldiers who will not wear a gas-mask are useless when the enemy attacks.
Soldiers who deny the death around them are delusional.

[sarisataka]

17. This thread- wow

Is this the same board that a year ago was cheering on people to defy lockdowns and curfews for protests?

That argued that the protesters did not need to wear masks because they were outdoors despite being in the middle of a pandemic?

Is the same board that vehemently defended Texas Democrat's just a week or so ago not wearing masks on their flight because it was a chartered aircraft and the mask guidelines did not apply?

But now believes a military enforced lockdown is sane and is is sane and reasonable?

[Elessar Zappa]

18. It's up to the Australians.

I wouldn’t be for anything like that here but I’m not gonna tell another country what to do.

[BannonsLiver]

22. Yeah, well said.

Knee jerk reigns. Always has.

I wonder if people cheering this on read the article last week about how Australians are starting to feel like prisoners? It was a pretty interesting article for the grass isn’t always greener file.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/07/24/australia/australia-lockdown-covid-lucky-country-intl-cmd/index.html

I’m also of the belief that god forbid had Trump won in November, the anti vax roles would be at least partially reversed.

[Crunchy Frog]

26. From what I recall, virtually everyone in those protests were masked.

And I'm pretty sure that at the time that the Texas legislators flew out, all of them fully vaccinated, in a chartered plane, that we were not yet aware of how readily Delta spread, even too and from fully vaxxed people.

In fact, it was the conventional wisdom around here that such spread was virtually impossible.

I believe that it makes sense for Australia to take extreme measures, considering how contagious and potentially deadly Delta is, coupled with how undervaccinated Australia is, and how little immunity there is from natural infections.

But still, go ahead and enjoy gloating over your "victory", whatever that is.

[sarisataka]

30. I fail to see

Any gloating. I am experiencing whiplash from the shift to authoritarianism.

Troops in the streets to keep you from traveling more than 10k from your home is pretty damn extreme. Would there be support here if Biden were to go the same route?

I know what the response would have been a year ago.

[Crunchy Frog]

31. Different set of circumstances in Australia.

They're trying to keep the entire country from going up in flames.

JMHO.

[roamer65]

19. No.

[Tarc]

20. What do you propose? Do we invade them?

Sovereign nations get to decide their own laws on pandemic responses.

[Scrivener7]

23. Who said they weren't? Your slip is really hanging low today.

[Tarc]

27. Looks like I have a fan this morning

Adorable.

[oioioi]

21. they already tried using the cops

https://www.9news.com.au/national/coronavirus-sydney-anti-lockdown-protestors-face-court-kept-behind-bars/8417cef6-cb4d-4c09-86a8-9ca39cdb7b3d

[Stinky The Clown]

24. This is what the good ol' USA should be doing.

Let the right wingers squeal. Safety outweighs their FREEDUMB.

[Tarc]

28. It's always telling when the OP never returns to provide any responses or rebuttals

There's nothing wrong with how Australia is handling this, they can make their own decisions.

It probably would not be worth the legal hassle to eve try it here, though.

[Stinky The Clown]

32. Not sure I get your point about the OP

I took the OP to be a rhetorical question, not a position to be rebutted.

[CottonBear]

29. No. They care about the health and safety of their population.

Australia and New Zealand are doing the right things to control and combat the pandemic.