Australia’s Chief Health Officer Completely Dashes Any Hope the Country Will Return to Normal One Day

Leah Barkoukis | September 27, 2021 8:00 AM

While speaking about the vaccination rates in New South Wales, Australian chief health officer Kerry Chant expressed optimism that they’d soon reach a 90 percent vaccination rate for the 16 and over population. Even still, however, she quickly poured cold water on the idea of life returning to normal ever again.

"We will not be going back to pre-COVID levels. We are always going to have to be mindful that COVID exists," she said. "We're going to have to engage with booster shots, we're going to have to engage with advice from time to time when we see outbreaks. We're going to have to respond, so it's not going to go back to normal, we can't deny that we have to live with COVID."

“Never going back to normal” — Australia https://t.co/JheAjHy0Hr
— ELIJAH SCHAFFER (@ElijahSchaffer) September 26, 2021

The comments came after violent protests over vaccine mandates for the construction industry rocked Melbourne, Victoria.

Australia has taken some of the most extreme measures against Covid-19, severely curtailing citizens’ freedoms by restricting interstate travel, setting up detention camps, going after booze, creating Orwellian apps to track Covid compliance, and more. Some liberal writers in the U.S. have wondered if Australia can even call itself a democracy anymore.

Welcome to #Australia, no longer Australian and never going back to ‘normal’. Australia always had a narcissistic bent to it but now it’s on steroids #narcissismonroids #Melbourne #Covid_19 https://t.co/dYsukTd90Y
— Tania Marshall M.Sc (Psych.) Clin. Psychotherapist (@TaniaAMarshall) September 26, 2021

Meanwhile, other countries have declared the opposite. Denmark lifted all Covid restrictions earlier this month, celebrating a “whole new era,” while Sweden removed most remaining pandemic restrictions. Norway also ended them, with Prime Minister Erna Solberg declaring, “the time has come to return to a normal daily life.”