Zero tolerance of the virus is a high bar to climb down from – and comes at the cost of serious collateral damage
But Australia as a whole has weathered remarkably well a global pandemic that has killed 5.5 million people. Deaths here are heavily weighted to the unvaccinated or the unboosted. In the hardest-hit state of NSW, omicron may already be past its peak of infections, even though deaths are still climbing.
Yet one result of walling off the state has been for West Australians to be the slowest vaccine takers in the country. At the current pace, it may be July before the state’s 30 per cent booster rate – far behind the national rate of more than 50 per cent – has risen enough for the borders to open again.Mr McGowan’s lockdowns have so far been popular in the state, giving him a crushing election victory against the Coalition last March.
The WA government has been throwing money at the healthcare sector, but that can’t fix lack of numbers. The hospitals, like the mines, are now as much at risk from staff kept out by border restrictions as they are from omicron inevitably leaking in. The politics of isolation are beginning to pull at risk-averse Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, with the country and cabinet less in agreement on lockdown.