Prime Minister Scott Morrison claimed on Tuesday that he and his government were “blindsided” by the virulence of the COVID-19 variant, Omicron.
This claim is referred to in most news reports as an “admission,” which implies that the government really didn’t know Omicron’s potential for mass infection, despite it being already proven in Africa, the UK, the US, Canada, and much of Europe.
“Claim” infers they did know, and chose wilful ignorance over rapid intervention. They also encouraged opening up & in the case of NSW, the abandoning of all TTIQ precautions at the same time as the highly infectious variant hit.
If the Scott government was unaware of Omicron’s potential this suggests that its members dwell in a rarefied atmosphere, untroubled by events on the rest of the planet, which is surely not a useful or desirable habitat from which to govern a country. But in truth, it is impossible to accept that Morrison and his lackeys were unaware of the infectious nature of the new COVID-19 variant. Making this outrageous claim only serves to emphasise his catastrophic incompetence and his arrogant disregard for the welfare of the country and its people.
If the Scott government was, as its leader claims, “blindsided” by Omicron’s contagious capacity it is because the Prime Minister wilfully ignored expert advice and the evidence of his own senses as the variant rampaged overseas before landing here. A highly infectious variant did not suit the government narrative of opening up, enjoying Christmas and putting the pandemic behind us in the new year.
So Morrison, aided by complicit lackeys, did his best to ignore the virus that was spoiling his vision and we now face previously unheard of infection and death rates, food shortages, vaccine shortages, booster shortages, overwhelmed hospitals, sick essential workers, a dearth of Rapid Antigen Tests, the collapse of systems set up to record and monitor infections, and the closure of businesses because people have instigated their own personal lockdowns in an attempt to avoid infection.
All this because Scott Morrison insisted on having his story, despite overwhelming evidence that it was wrong.
In fact, this is exactly what we should expect from a man who believes he was chosen by God to run this country. Morrison has incontestable faith in his own stories. He will go to every length to see them realised. He doesn’t listen to voices that might challenge the trajectory of his narrative. He deliberately failed to inform himself on the new variant, despite being surrounded by experts, because their advice did not accord with the story he wanted to tell.
And here we are.
Is there any other leader in the world who has told their country that they “didn’t know” how severely contagious Omicron could be? Is there any other leader who would plead ignorance of Omicron as an explanation for their abject failure to address it? It’s the leader’s job to know more than we do, he has at his disposal resources we can only dream of yet “ordinary” people on social media apparently knew long before the Australian government that the variant causes havoc.
At least Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was forthright enough to declare that he found the topic of COVID-19 “boring.”
“In which country did people not die? Tell me!” he responded. “Look, I didn’t come here to be bored.”
Meanwhile in Australia:
“The Prime Minister said despite hundreds of deaths in the last week, that the death rate overseas was even higher.”
It’s alarming enough that the Prime Minister believes “admitting” wilful ignorance is a reasonable political strategy. What he’s actually admitting is that he lives in a bubble of protection from global events, medical and scientific research, and any information that does not coincide with the stories he tells himself which must be right, according to his reasoning, because God chose him to tell them.
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