Kudos for the yarn and everything, but I think I speak for the vast majority of earthly inhabitants when I say that we all are sick to bloody death of this virus. But not literally – and that’s the whole point. Despite daily reported case numbers starting to creep back up above 10,000, the total number of hospitalisations is hovering about 1000.And the number of people in ICU is in the 40s. Not in the 400s or 4000s, but in the 40s. As in my age.Take away all the unvaccinated and under-vaccinated and those numbers would be lower still. And yet NSW Health is reportedly asking the state government to reintroduce restrictions we only said goodbye to last month.This is surely a level of satire only the most hardened deep-state socialist would embrace. The fact this revelation came at the same time as new national cabinet guidelines instructing we should simply treat Covid like the flu only makes it more ridiculous.This is not to disrespect the good people of NSW Health, whose extraordinary capabilities in contact tracing and hospital capacity enabled us to weather Covid outbreaks better than almost any other jurisdiction on Earth.I would cheer them harder than I would any football team. But health workers tend to be a fairly singularly-focused lot, that focus being our health. The rest of us tend to focus on other things.Like, for example, getting on with our lives. Our doctors tell us what we need to do to live better and we always nod attentively in the surgery. Then we go out and live better in a somewhat different sense of the word.In other words, of course health professionals will always tell the government we need to bring back restrictions to stop the spread of whatever new corona variant is coming along.And they’re no doubt right but that doesn’t make them reasonable.By way of illustration, let’s look at some other health advice that – thank the Lord – is not legally enforceable.The National Health and Medical Research Council states: “To reduce the risk of harm from alcohol-related disease or injury, healthy men and women should drink no more than 10 standard drinks a week and no more than four standard drinks on any one day.”Again, I have no doubt this is true. I also have no doubt that not a single person I know meets this criteria.NED-1397-do-you-have-coronavirusAnd yes, I know I’m a pretty debauched character, but think about it: how many people do you know who have never had more than four standard drinks on any one day? At a pub? At a club? At a wedding? At a wake?Walk down George St or Church St or Darlinghurst Rd on any given Saturday night and vox pop the local population. Or pop into any pub in a country town or any Western Sydney loungeroom. Better still, count the wine bottles in the recycling bin outside any inner-west terrace or Eastern Suburbs mansion.But let’s leave those four-drink lushes out of it for a moment. Even if you resisted such a bacchanalian frenzy you would be permitted only two middies, five nights a week. Either you’d have to stop off at the pub and order the accursed quantity or you’d have to carefully consume your stubbies at home and stop sipping halfway through the second.It is a statement of the obvious that had these guidelines ever been followed all of civilisation would have collapsed in a heap. Already there are complaints Western society isn’t producing enough babies. Imagine if they took booze out of the mix.Daily Telegraph – News Feed latest episodeBut such advice is well-intentioned, and so like all health advice it needs to be acknowledged, understood and quietly ignored where necessary. So it is with the latest warnings on Covid. Yes, we could all go back to more restrictions and it would perhaps achieve some minor utopian metric while making us miserable again.Or we could all just grow a set, accept that life comes with a degree of risk, and exercise what used to be known as common sense.And as for those who are still irrationally fearful of Covid-19 – Branch Covidians, as they have become known – they are perfectly free to avoid contact with other people if they so wish.In fact it would probably work out best for everybody if they did.Watch The Blame Game with Joe Hildebrand 8:30pm FridaysThe Daily Telegraph, printed and published by the proprietor, Nationwide News Pty Ltd A.C.N. 008438828 of 2 Holt St, Surry Hills NSW 2010, at 26-52 Hume Highway, Chullora. Responsibility for election comment is taken by the Editor, Ben English.
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