Australia's Squandered Pandemic Luck Bodes Ill for Its Future
The failure to heed clear warnings sends a discouraging signal about the government’s ability to handle other complex global crises in the coming years.
When the music stops.
Photographers: Lisa Maree Williams/Bloomberg; Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images
For much of the past 18 months, living in Sydney while a pandemic has raged around the rest of the world has been such an undeserved blessing that I’ve felt almost embarrassed in conversation with overseas friends.
From May last year until a few weeks ago, life had been close to normal, beyond the usual routine of QR codes and closed international borders. Even face masks had largely disappeared. Less than five dozen cases of local transmission occurred in my home state of New South Wales this year until June 16, when a limousine driver carrying flight crew from the airport caught the delta variant. The outbreak that resulted has now infected more than 700 people, and brought Sydney to a standstill.