Why are we still indulging the zero Covid fanatics?

Australia has shown the folly of obsessing over case numbers, yet Britain hasn’t learned anything either

The zero Covid project has collapsed, so why are we still indulging the elimination extremists? Cast your eyes over to Australia, where this “model” for controlling the pandemic is stuck in a lunatic cycle of self-harm. The state of South Australia has just gone into another lockdown after only five positive “cases” – even though it is unclear if any of the people are actually ill, let alone at serious risk of dying.

People have been told to stay at home with schools, shops and everything else shut. All because of a handful of positive test results.

Explaining the method behind the madness, Nicola Spurrier, the chief public health officer, said: “The virus doesn’t have legs: it moves around when people move around, so if people stay put we will be able to get on top of it.” Yes, let’s all stay put, indefinitely, shall we? Throw another virologist on the barbie, cobber!

Due to a suspected outbreak of the delta variant, half of Australia’s population, about 13 million people, are now in some form of lockdown despite pursuing a policy of splendid isolation involving closed borders and quarantine hotels. Having halved its cap on international arrivals to 3,000 a week, there are now 34,000 Australians stranded in a foreign country and unable to come home.

Over in New Zealand, the mood is similarly masochistic thanks to Jacinda Ardern having done her level best throughout the pandemic to prove that quote about New Zealand being closed.

The Left-wing prime minister has been praised by big statists for pursuing a Covid elimination strategy from the start – seemingly oblivious to the fact that she still hasn’t eliminated Covid, 17 months on. While the nation should of course be congratulated for having recorded just 26 Covid deaths, even with travel to New Zealand having effectively been banned since March last year, there are still infections because viruses neither tend to have passports nor fill out passenger locator forms.

Ms Ardern “performed a little dance” when New Zealand was Covid free on June 8 last year but now she is busily telling the Australians to foxtrot oscar with their joint quarantine-free travel bubble. So much for everybody needing good neighbours.

Such is the collective hysteria of the antipodean powers-that-be that Australia and New Zealand have already pulled out of the Rugby League World Cup because of concerns about the spread of the coronavirus – even though it is not taking place in Britain until October.

How refreshing it was to hear Simon Johnson, chairman of the host’s governing body, respond so candidly in describing the decision by the top two teams in the world as “selfish, parochial and cowardly”. It is certainly an odd move when you consider that both countries have sent athletes to Tokyo despite it dealing with 100 Covid cases linked to the Olympics as opposed to hypothetical infections that have not yet been spread.

The whole farago provides a perfect case study in why an obsession with driving down case numbers is disproportionate and wrong. It might have been a sound policy at the beginning of the pandemic – but not at the end of it.

Yet we are not immune from the nutbaggery up here in the northern hemisphere either. Take a look at our pingdemic, born out of scaremongering graphs which seemingly fail to take any account of the effectiveness of our vaccine rollout which, incidentally, is far superior to Australia and New Zealand’s. (The former has fully jabbed about 12 per cent of the population while the latter has managed about 15 per cent so perhaps it is no wonder they are being so over cautious).

The UK Government’s system for “releasing” workers from our current state of lockdown limbo is a bureaucratic mess. As the United Pingdom remains paralysed, with one million healthy people having been told to isolate, ministers are refusing to bring forward the August 16 plan for exempting the double jabbed. Employers are instead being asked to carry out even more testing on staff – with sites being set up at 500 factories, warehouses and distribution centres so critical workers no longer need to isolate if they are pinged by the NHS Covid app.

But this does not constitute anything resembling a normal return to work. Instead it is a system of stealth restrictions, designed to keep the general public living in fear of coronavirus rather than learning to live with it.

I thought the whole point of the vaccine was that it meant we didn’t have to worry about Covid cases in themselves – just protect the most vulnerable from dying from it, which we have done.

Nearly 70 per cent of over-18s in the UK are now fully vaccinated. I appreciate there are concerns about lower take-up among 18 to 34-yearolds, but as they are at much smaller risk of being hospitalised and dying from the disease (and are being actively encouraged to achieve herd immunity in nightclubs), why are we still mass testing more than anyone else in Europe?

The rollout should have enabled us to loosen up and yet the Department of Health continues to double down, seemingly oblivious to the enormous economic, social and psychological cost to the country.

Meanwhile, children face the prospect of returning to school in September, but only after chimneysweeping their little noses. While preferable to some of the zero Covid zealots’ suggestion that they should be anally swabbed (look it up – some of these scientists also signed the Lancet letter calling freedom day “immoral and dangerous”), why do we need to test children daily when the vast majority of teachers, parents and grandparents have been double jabbed – or will be by the start of next term?

Testing may be useful for tracking new variants, but the continued fixation on case numbers – or rather positive test results – is also feeding paranoia and holding us back. It is time to start trusting the vaccine for the medical miracle it is, rather than continuing this insanely selfdestructive search for a zero Covid unicorn.

‘The continued fixation on case numbers – or rather positive test results – is feeding paranoia and holding us back’