Australia’s lockdown tyranny has made pariah of Djokovic
If you think Covid passports are illiberal, try living in Australia’s Northern Territory, where those choosing not to be doublejabbed face £2,700 fines. Against this backdrop, it is scarcely surprising that known vaccine sceptic Novak Djokovic finds himself threatened with being banned from the country altogether, even as he chases his 10th Australian Open and a record 21st men’s major title.
“I have a message for everybody who wishes to visit Australia,” said Alex Hawke, the country’s immigration minister. “He’ll need to be double-vaccinated.”
Djokovic has had his views weaponised by grandstanding Australian politicians before. At this year’s tournament, Victoria’s state premier Daniel Andrews – a man who has imposed six lockdowns and still insists on subjecting a highly-vaccinated community to a 9pm curfew – castigated the Serb for his “lists of demands”. All Djokovic had done, it turned out, was to ask whether his fellow players could have access to private houses for training, rather than enduring 14 days’ hotel confinement without fresh air.
Now, in the latest expression of Australia’s pious ostracising of anybody who questions its rules, Djokovic is demonised as a vaccine refusenik and a crank.
But there are two problems with this caricature. The first is that Djokovic has still not clarified his medical status one way or the other. While he is highly likely not to have been jabbed, given his stated opposition to mandatory vaccination, he will still not say for certain, describing the question in a Serbian interview as “immoderate”.
The second is that he has already had the virus after contracting Covid during the ill-judged pan-balkan Adria Tour at the height of the first wave in Europe, a lapse of judgment for which he was roundly condemned.
Given that a study published only this week by the Office of National Statistics suggested prior infection was as effective in preventing Covid as vaccination, it is not unreasonable to argue that Djokovic’s hesitancy about receiving the jab is based on more than just wacky pseudo-science.
While I have long believed that vaccines represent the fastest and most effective way out of the pandemic, I dislike how Djokovic is belittled for expressing individual freedom of choice. The warning about banning him in Australia is rooted less in science than in the nation’s inflexible ideology.
The logic goes that if Djokovic’s Melbourne taxi driver has to show proof of vaccination, then so must he. Except Australia’s all-in-ittogether attitudes towards Covid are a myth. Look at Queensland, which now claims it will admit Australians from other states quarantine-free from mid-december – the date when it is scheduled to reach
80 per cent vaccination – but will still subject overseas arrivals to a fortnight’s hard lock-up. The double standard is extraordinary.
Sadly, Australian perceptions of Europeans as plague-carriers are becoming entrenched – even if, by grim irony, the country’s salvation from Covid will ultimately arrive courtesy of two vaccines developed in Europe.
Although Melbourne purports to be opening up over the coming weeks, all international travellers to January’s Australian Open still stand to be sealed in a two-week pre-tournament bubble, having been compelled to arrive on charter flights at exorbitant cost.
As for Djokovic, it looks as if he can forget about even crossing the threshold. After almost two years of Australia’s Covid-mania, it comes to this, a world No1 locked out of a land whose premier tennis title he has won nine times. It is no way to treat a great champion. Australia might like to imagine that the shunning of Djokovic springs from noble principles, but instead it smacks, once again, of tyrannical overreach.