Cabin fever in “Fortress Australia” due to low vaccination rate

With the possible exception of North Korea, no country has gone further to cut itself off from the world during the pandemic than Australia.

Why is this important: Australia’s approach of shutting down at the first sign of an outbreak and keeping borders tightly closed – including to its own citizens – has proven to be both effective and popular, so far. With the delay in vaccinations, some Australians are wondering how long they can continue like this.

Driving the news: Most citizens are prohibited from leaving the country except in exceptional circumstances, and from Wednesday this will even include expats attempting to return home from Australia.

• There is also a backlog of 35,000 Australians hoping to return to the country – requiring two weeks in a quarantine hotel – as only around 3,000 people are allowed in each week, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
• Australia has gone so far as to ban its Indian citizens from returning in the spring, blocking them amid a brutal wave of COVID-19 and threatening to fine or jail anyone who defies the ban.
• The “Fortress Australia” approach divided families, but it also won the approval of most Australians.

As the pandemic raged elsewhere, Australia capitalized on its geography to rule out all but a few cases and used quick locks whenever they were detected.

• The “new normal” came early. Pubs and stadiums full, with a number of cases close to zero.
• Several European countries have suffered more single-day death tolls than the 940 Australia recorded across the pandemic.
• Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s approval rating doubled from 33% to 67% in the first few months of the pandemic, according to the Morning Consult tracker, but recently slipped below 50%.

The vaccines were his downfall.

• 36% of Australians have received a single dose and 18% are fully vaccinated, placing Australia 35th out of 38 in the OECD club of rich countries, according to The Guardian.
• Morrison’s government intended to use a mixture of Pfizer and AstraZeneca, but failed to secure the former enough and suspended the latter for those under 60 due to blood clot issues, before resume its use.
• The government is trying to catch up. Morrison announced today that Moderna has been approved and doses will arrive in late September.

Meanwhile, Australia’s two largest cities are under strict lockdown as the Delta variant spreads.

• There have been big protests against the restrictions in greater Sydney, where residents can only leave their homes for a handful of reasons, like exercise or medical attention.
• The capillary-triggered closures have meant that a coastal region and a rural town, both of which have not yet recorded cases of COVID-19, were closed today because they had been visited by an infected person.
• “I know they’re fed up. I know they’re angry, and I know they want this to end and life to come back to where they knew it,” Morrison told reporters today. hui about local and regional blockages. “But there can be no shortcuts.”

And after: Morrison said the reopening can begin and travel bans can be relaxed once vaccination rates among the eligible population reach 70% and 80% respectively.

• The government aims to offer a first dose to any adult who wants it by the end of the year.

The bottom line: Australians have been protected as the cases have spread widely to other large, wealthy countries. But as vaccines began to proliferate, Australia remained to watch from afar.