You Complained About Lockdown!

And now you’re complaining about being open?

I just don’t get it!

As I have written previously, where I live in Queensland, Australia, thanks to good management and adherence to solid scientific principles, we have so far managed to dodge the proverbial covid bullet, with only 7 deaths recorded during the whole pandemic. (You can read about that here).

We did the hard yards, we struggled through lockdowns, pushed the vax rate up over 80%, and got on with it. However, during that whole period, as if life wasn’t stressful enough in general, we had a minority group of “contrarians”, led by conservative politicians and media, who constantly sniped at the state government begging them to stop the lockdowns “open up” the economy, and “let the virus rip”.

Restaurant Owners aren’t Scientists.

Leading these calls were business owners in our tourism and hospitality industry, which is the largest employer in our city. Daily in local media and on socials, our feeds were bombarded with cries from tourism and hospitality operators that their businesses were dying, and these businesses were way more important than people’s health. And of course, once one operator emerged spewing hate for the government’s actions on keeping people safe, the media and conservative minority political parties kept returning to them, giving them more traction — then other operators appeared once they realised that this was free promotion for their struggling venues.

First, they railed against the lockdowns. Then, when the lockdowns were lifted, it was masks, the QR Code Check-ins, and the venue seating limits they complained about. Bugger the science, bugger the protocols, bugger other people’s health, WE NEED TO OPEN they screamed!

Enter the Freedumbers.

Many of these smaller operators, once they had been featured in the media, were then championed by the fringe right-wing groups that emerged during the pandemic and were given even more air time. The “Freedumbers” took up their plight, complete with Trump flags and random Q-anon dickheadery, and began marching in the streets (no masks or social distancing) and attacking businesses for doing the right thing.

According to the Freedumbers, we were living in Nazi Germany, Queensland is one big concentration camp, our freedoms have been denied (sound familiar?), and the government, in particular the female state Premier, is a heartless cold human who enjoys coming up with new ways to destroy our businesses under the pretense of “keeping us safe”.

She’s also a communist, taking her orders directly from Beijing.

Now imagine owning a small cafe, being closed or limited to takeaway service only for 6 months, and you finally get to open up, how happy would you be?

You follow all the instructions from the government, set your codes up, get your staff vaxed and fully compliant, and on the first day you open…… some Freedumber refuses to wear a mask and to use the check-in code to enter your venue, and then films themselves abusing your 15-year-old wait staff before posting it to social media so his moron mates can see how brave he was standing up to the tyranny of wearing a mask and checking in!

Your first day back, and you end up calling the cops to have them remove this modern-day William Wallace wannabe from your premises, only to have the dickhead’s video go viral on the local Freedumb support group’s socials and be shown on the local news that night.

That’s your reward for doing the right thing?

80% Omicron

The state government, aware Omicron was on the doorstep, pushed the full opening of all borders forward to the middle of December, as we had reached well over 80% fully vaxed in the general population. They kept the QR check-ins and mandated masks indoors. They added an extra layer of protection with a regulation that any person that is a “casual contact” of a person with covid must quarantine for 7 days, or until a test proves negative. This included restaurant staff.

You’d think this would make the restauranteurs happy?

No, of course not.

Even though they’re now fully open (and Omicron is ripping through society), they’re still complaining about wearing masks and checking in and quarantine AND they’re still shouting that it’s the government’s fault!

You wanted the bloody thing opened, and now it’s opened, you’re still complaining?

Soon, they’ll have no one left as customers except for the Freedumbers. I just don’t get it, but I guess you get what you deserve in the end.

Disclosure: My business is tourism/event-based and has basically been closed since the start of the pandemic — we have personally been heavily impacted due to the pandemic, BUT we are still here, healthy and happy, and we don’t have covid (yet).

https://readmedium.com/hey-america-australia-hasnt-fallen-78f41c6c2c51

https://readmedium.com/a-right-wing-liberal-democrat-stole-my-tweet-39a303587633

https://readmedium.com/why-am-i-the-only-one-wearing-a-mask-b5c135cd470