I have not followed Australia closely. I knew about the "cup of coffee" because a poster in this thread posted it.
I have tried to read up on Australia's response. It appears they went into a number of lockdowns, which are now being relaxed.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/a...kdown-rcna3150
It also seems that each territory has some flexibility on how they address their particular challenges from the virus.
The Northern Territory, which so far has no deaths from Covid, has mandated that many workers in various industries must be vaccinated to continue employment. The $3700 (USD) fine is confusing to me. I don't know if it applies if you don't get vaccinated, or just try to show up to work unvaccinated.
I think that's not something I would favor, although mandating it has driven vaccines to be secured at an increasing rate.
Reminds me of our health care premium increases if you are a smoker, or (before the ACA) having higher rates for pre-existing conditions.
Current Australia rules as posted on their government website:
Seems reasonable as business, etc open with limited capacity.
Maybe some of their efforts appear draconian to us. And maybe they are.
But we have children vaccinated to get into school, so why we are so divided on this vaccine effort, which appears to work well, just baffles me.
The absolute bottom line are people's lives.
Maybe we couldn't have done Australia's 6K deaths per 100,000...but we could have done a whole hell of lot better if people just got vaccinated.
At 221K deaths per 100,000, we've racked up 700,000 dead American.
Yes, I would support Australia's approach if we could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. It's a public health emergency, and we should all do what we can do to get us through.
