Australia's military will help enforce a lockdown in Sydney after the city of 6 million posted a record daily rise in COVID-19 cases on Thursday and state authorities said the outbreak was likely to get worse.
The lockdown of Australia's biggest city has increased pressure on Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who is now trailing in opinion polls, and heightened concern that Australia's A$2 trillion ($1.5 trillion) economy could slide into recession.
Despite an extended lockdown in Sydney since an outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant, 239 new locally acquired coronavirus cases were recorded in the city over a 24-hour period, the biggest daily rise since the pandemic began.
"We can only assume that things are likely to get worse before they get better given the quantity of people infectious in the community," Gladys Berejiklian, the premier of New South Wales state, of which Sydney is the capital, said.
Got that? The situation hasn't actually deteriorated to a dire point yet Down Under, but on the 'assumption' that it could/maybe/might, a military-enforced lockdown has been imposed.
Aren't China, North Korea and Iran the countries that use their militaries to enforce the edicts of their tyrannical leaders?
"With little sign that of restrictions reducing infections, Berejiklian said new curbs would be imposed on the southwestern and western areas of Sydney where the majority of COVID-19 cases are being found," Reuters reported, adding this shocking detail: "Residents there will be forced to wear masks outdoors and to stay within five km (three miles) of their homes."
Masks and lockdowns and 'social distancing' did not help "bend the curve" of the initial outbreak because viruses are going to virus. Why, then, would these new economy-killing measures solve the problem and end the spread?
They won't, of course, not in Australia, Europe or the United States.
But that doesn't matter in AussieLand; here comes the military.
"The personnel will deploy on Friday, Defence Minister Peter Dutton said, and will begin assisting police with ensuring compliance with restrictions next week," Reuters reported.
"With an increase in enforcement activity over the coming week, I have now made a formal request to the prime minister for (Australian Defence Force) personnel to assist with that operation," New South Wales Police Commissioner Mick Fuller noted in an emailed statement to Reuters.
Already hurt by inflation and economic disparity thanks to previous prolonged lockdowns, Australian business owners and workers are about to be hit with a double dose of financial hardship, and for a strain of virus that is less lethal than the first strain.
But we don't have authoritarianism in the West. Just don't believe your lying eyes.
Sources include:
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