As I write this article approximately 12 million Australians are in lockdown for a virus where only 2 people are in ICU across the country.
The city of Alice Springs is in Lockdown and they don’t even have any cases.
In Canberra, our nation’s capital, you are mandated to wear a mask anywhere in the community and they have no virus cases.
In my state of New South Wales, we must wear masks in any indoor area and our tiny little church congregation is not even allowed to sing even though only 3 cases have emerged in our area since March 2020.
The AFL (Australian Football League) has evacuated the Adelaide Crows and the Port Adelaide Power from South Australia despite the only cases in the state involve a family of four who are all safely isolating.
In Queensland the Chief Health Officer and Governor-Designate, Dr Jeanette Young, made another embarrassing gaffe which has no doubt fueled the Anti-Vax movement by pointing out she did not want under 40’s to get the AstraZeneca jab because quote, “I don’t want an 18-year-old in Queensland dying from a clotting illness who, if they caught COVID, probably wouldn’t die,”
Dr Young made those comments on Wednesday, June 30.
In this case then Dr Young, why have you ordered every single 18 year old in South East Queensland, Magnetic Island and Palm Island to stay home and hide from a virus which, if they caught and to use your words “probably wouldn’t die.”
Her comments were publicly rebuked by the top infectious disease expert in the country Dr Nick Coatsworth and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners insisting risk of a young person dyeing from Covid-19 is ‘higher than the risk of clotting complications from the AstraZeneca vaccine.’
Of course, we all know the real reason behind this misinformation.
Anyone who is politically savvy would know it is in the Palaszczuk Government’s best interests to delay and slow down the vaccine roll out and put the state under unnecessary lockdowns and simply blame it on the Federal Government for the slow vaccine roll out.
We have an election coming up in this country she knows she needs to politicize this roll out as much as possible like she politicized the border closures leading up to the State Election in Queensland last year which subsequently saw her re-elected in a landslide.
Now she is trying the same tactic except this time the target is the Morrison Government.
She knows her state is crucial to the election next year like it was at the last election.
So, if she, by plunging her state into unnecessary lockdowns, ruining businesses, seeing multitudes of people unvaccinated, would mean the Morrison Government was not re-elected then she has done her job.
But we must look at the big picture
That is just one example of politicization if the virus in this country. We must ask ourselves how much are we prepared to tolerate in the name of Covid-19?
We are what we tolerate and how much of our lives are we going to allow the Government to disrupt in the name of the virus?
As Christians are we going to keep allowing the Government to dictate our singing for a virus that has no cases in our area?
How much overreach are we going to allow into our lives for something which has been politicized to the extent it has?
In the UK despite daily increase of infections as high as 26,000, they are still allowing crowd capacities of 75 percent and at Wimbledon with tennis players flying in from all over the world.
What must they think when they hear our State Premiers have daily press conferences over a handful of cases in which most are mild or already isolating?
I really think we have lost our courage in this country; we need to get it back.
Ben Kruzins is the Campus Pastor of The Hub Baptist Church in Ocean Shores on the North Coast of New South Wales. He is also a Journalism graduate who has written articles in The Canberra Times and The Sydney Morning Herald.