The Overseas Situation Report Tuesday 18 January 2022
by Mike Evans
“Patience is not the ability to wait but how you act while you are waiting”
Joyce Meyer
With the latest variant still moving across the world, in this report we look at the situation in Australia and closer to home, France.
In Australia, where the main news the world has been seeing is that the Tennis star, Novak Djockovic has been deported and England’s cricketers once again surrendered in the latest Ashes test match, the Covid situation has taken a very different path to what we all saw in 2021.
As 2021 drew to a close, many Australians were cautiously optimistic that the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic was behind them. The country had surpassed ambitious vaccine targets, meaning its rolling lockdowns could cease, both internal and international borders would reopen, and as Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared, it was now possible to “live with this virus.”
But as Australia moved to change course on its pandemic strategy, the highly transmissible Omicron variant hit. In just over a month, cases have risen from around 1,000 a day to more than 100,000 a day. Hallmarks of the pandemic that Australia mostly avoided began to emerge. The health system is buckling. Many supermarket shelves are bare as sick workers stay home.
Despite this surge in cases, most Australian states and territories are holding the line and allowing the virus to circulate in their communities, which critics have labelled the “let it rip” approach. For much of the pandemic, Australia aimed for zero Covid cases, employing regular lockdowns (the country’s second-largest city, Melbourne, was in lockdown for more than 260 days) and extremely strict border policies. And it worked — the nation’s Covid mortality rate has been among the lowest in the world.
But as the pandemic ground on, the government decided restrictions could start to be dramatically loosened when a state or territory vaccinated 80 percent of its over-16 population. All states and territories achieved this in the final months of last year.
Practises that had become part of everyday life, such as wearing masks in certain settings and checking into venues via government apps for contact tracing purposes, were soon relaxed. (Australia did require that international arrivals be vaccinated, leading to the Novak Djokovic saga.)
According to Alexandra Martiniuk, a professor and epidemiologist at the University of Sydney, she thinks the timing of Australia’s U-turn was not ideal.
“[Some states and territories] really got down to very few restrictions, just as there was the emergence of Omicron. Scientists, other experts and some in the public were asking, ‘Hey, is this smart? We actually don’t know omicron well enough. Should we be doing this?’” she said. “We should have changed our plan when we saw Omicron arrive. … We barged straight into a dark room without knowing what was in there.”
Like many countries around the world, Omicron has hit Australia hard. Some states and territories that once went weeks without a case now have thousands or tens of thousands of cases each day. The number of daily deaths has jumped from around 10 in December to more than 50.
And the strain has been felt across the country. First, testing systems quickly became overwhelmed. People waited for hours at PCR testing facilities, with results delayed for days. Many pharmacies and shops have run out of rapid tests and those that still have some face accusations of price gouging.
Some convenience stores and restaurants have been selling rapid tests via the UberEats app at inflated prices, and one Australian has created a website to help people use a live map of their towns and cities to find where a rapid test may still be available.
With cases spiking so quickly, workers of all stripes have needed to take time off because of sickness or to meet isolation requirements, affecting many industries and supply chains. Supermarkets are short of certain products. Trains in Australia’s biggest city, Sydney, are running on a reduced timetable due to a lack of staff. And KFC restaurant outlets are facing a chicken shortage.
“Omicron is a beast. Every country is dealing with it, and it never would have been perfect [in Australia]. … But what we could have done is bend the curve — slow the number of people who got it,” Martiniuk says. In the face of Omicron, states and territories have reintroduced some limited Covid restrictions, such as mask mandates and banning singing and dancing at certain venues.
The one state to have dodged the omicron surge is Western Australia, which has maintained a hard border with other states and territories. It remains almost free of Covid but has faced criticism for not allowing fellow Australians to enter, even for compassionate reasons.
The prime minister and other state and territory leaders point to Australia’s vaccination rate as a key reason why the country will weather the omicron storm. Around 77 percent of the overall population has received two doses of the vaccine, compared with around 62 percent in the United States. And the Australian government often trumpets another number — around 92 percent of the over-16 population has received two vaccine doses.
Amid criticism about the government’s response to the omicron surge, the prime minister maintains Australia is well-placed to get through to the other side. “You’ve got two choices here: You can push through, or you can lock down. We are pushing through,” Morrison told reporters. “It’s going to be tough. The whole pandemic has been tough, and Australians have shown resilience, patience, and determination. … The best possible medical advice is to push through.” Omicron “has been moving at a very quick rate compared to our early estimates. … What we’ve also seen is the severity of it being far less than perhaps was anticipated.”
Australia’s initial tough approach toward Covid, followed by its slow but successful vaccine rollout, have meant the number of deaths attributed to the virus has been around 2,500, compared with around 846,000 in the U.S. Time will tell which track is the right one.
Meanwhile a little closer to home in France, the Government announced that citizens of the country, as well as foreigners, are now subject to tightened Coronavirus rules. The authorities revealed that since January 15, the rules for access to all kinds of services, including restaurants, museums, theatres, sports activities, and accommodation facilities, among others, will be tightened.
The tightened rules follow the announcement on the validity of vaccination certificates. The French authorities disclosed that everyone over the age of 18 would have to receive a booster shot in order for their vaccination certificate to remain valid. The requirement to receive the booster dose will apply to all persons who have completed their vaccination more than seven months ago.
Thus, in line with the new rules, it means that as soon as the decision enters into force, all those who have received their last vaccine dose over seven months ago but haven’t received a booster dose yet will be considered as unvaccinated.
Taking into account that access to the majority of places and activities is only permitted to those who are fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 disease, those who don’t receive their additional vaccine dose will be denied entry to most places, including the ones mentioned above.
It has been explained that children between the age of 12 and 18 are exempt from the requirement to receive a booster dose, meaning that their two-dose vaccine will remain valid. In contrast, children under 12 are not required to receive any vaccine dose.
“To enter French territory, The COVID certificate is mandatory for everyone over the age of 12 years and two months,” the statement of the French government reads. Apart from the vaccination requirement, travellers over the age of 12 are also required to present a negative PCR or rapid antigen test, taken within 48 or 24 hours, respectively. Nonetheless, it has been explained that the pre-entry testing requirement does not apply to travellers who reach France from a European Union Member State or a Schengen Area country.
Previously, France eased its entry rules for travellers from the UK. In line with the new rules that started being effective on January 14, all UK travellers who have been fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 disease can enter France without having to provide a compelling reason for their trip. However, everyone is still required to meet the national rules while in France, including the presentation of vaccination certificates when attending different places and activities.
These new rules which were approved by parliament on the 15th have not come without protests. Over 100,000 people protested on the streets of Paris and other cities last week to oppose what they called the government’s plans to restrict the rights of the unvaccinated.
In the French capital, Paris, protesters – many of them unmasked – braved the cold and the rain on Saturday, carrying placards that read “Truth”, “Freedom” and “No to vaccine pass”. Among the larger demonstrations, about 6,000 demonstrators turned out in Toulon, while in Montpellier police used tear gas during clashes with protesters.
Until the next time Stay Safe.
Information and Resources:
Total Cases Worldwide – 329,022,171
Total Deaths Worldwide – 5,559,048
Total Recovered Worldwide – 267,839,370
Total Active Cases Worldwide – 55,623,753 (16.9% of the total cases)
Total Closed Cases Worldwide – 273,398,418
https://www.worldometer.info/coronavirus/
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/9/more-than-100000-rally-in-france-against-covid-vaccine-rules