Like many countries around the world, omicron has hit Australia hard. … We barged straight into a dark room without knowing what was in there.” Long lines, empty shelves “We should have changed our plan when we saw omicron arrive. … Scientists, other experts and also some in the public were asking, ‘Hey, is this smart? We actually don’t know omicron well enough. “ really got down to very few restrictions, just as there was the emergence of omicron. (Australia did require that international arrivals be vaccinated, leading to the Novak Djokovic saga.)Īlexandra Martiniuk, a professor and epidemiologist at the University of Sydney, said the timing of Australia’s U-turn was not ideal. Practices 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. All states and territories achieved this in the final months of last year.
And it worked - the nation’s Covid mortality rate has been among the lowest in the world.īut 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. But is it all bad news? ‘Should we be doing this?’įor 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. Many supermarket shelves are bare as sick workers stay home.ĭespite 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 labeled the “let it rip” approach.
Hallmarks of the pandemic that Australia mostly avoided began to emerge. In just over a month, cases have risen from around 1,000 a day to more than 100,000 a day. But as Australia moved to change course on its pandemic strategy, the highly transmissible omicron variant hit.
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