Lockdown Politician Admits Mandates Were Wrong
Accountability for those responsible for the disasters of global governments’ handling of the COVID-19 pandemic is nearly impossible. For several reasons.
Namely, that accountability would have to come from those currently in government. Many, if not most, of whom supported the mask mandates, vaccine passports and other absurdities inflicted on the global public. It would also require those responsible to actually acknowledge their mistakes, then take responsibility for them. How often do we see politicians or influential public figures admit that they were wrong?
Especially when the consequences were, and are, so severe.
It’s refreshing then, the few blissful examples of people in charge, someone who can make decisions, admitting that mistakes were made. That absurd policies with no basis in science were forced on the public. And apologize for their role in it.
READ: Former CDC Director Makes Stunning Admission On COVID Vaccines
And now, finally, we have another politician willing to admit that they got COVID wrong.
SYDNEY - People wearing masks walk outside The Sydney Opera House on February 10, 2023. On July 6, 2022 the Australian government lifted all COVID-19 requirements for locals and travelers ending a two-year long restriction period. (Photo by Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
Former Australian Premier Admits Vaccine Mandates Were Wrong
Dominic Perrottet is the former premier in New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state and home to Sydney. Australia, infamously, was one of the most prolific spreaders of COVID misinformation during the pandemic. While being home to some of the world’s most restrictive policies and mandates.
While Daniel Andrews from the state of Victoria often receives most of the criticism, and rightfully so, for his extremism during the pandemic, New South Wales was nearly as restrictive.
The state under Gladys Berejiklian banned gatherings of 500 people or more in March, with the order enforced by state police with punishment including prison time, fines, or both. They closed their borders, even to other Australians, from July 8, 2020 to November 2020, then again from January 2021 to the middle of February in 2021. Even after the borders opened, visitors returning to the state from Victoria were forced to quarantine.
NSW made QR code check-ins mandatory in 2021 for "contact tracing," a laughable, futile attempt to track a highly infectious respiratory virus. Retail stores, taxis, offices and many other locations required individuals to scan a QR code upon entry.
They also in March 2020 made it illegal to have more than two people gathered at a time, as well as banning people from leaving their own homes without a "reasonable excuse." That’s not an exaggeration; the law quite literally states "that a person must not, without reasonable excuse, leave the person's place of residence."
Masks were mandated, including at outdoor events, well past 2021 and into 2022. In fact, as late as August 2021, NSW enforced curfews from 9pm to 5am and made masks mandatory anytime someone left their home. In late September, some restrictions were relaxed, allowing residents to create a 3-person "friend bubble" where leisure activities were permitted.
By October, the state reached an 80 percent full vaccination rate, allowing for the vaccinated to regain a small measure of freedom.
As with the rest of Australia, none of it worked. Lockdowns, mandates, an 80 percent vaccination rate, restrictions on the unvaccinated — none of it mattered.
Even more hilariously, New South Wales’ vaccine passport system came into effect directly before the state saw it’s highest rate of COVID spread during the pandemic.
And Perrottet, who presided over the period of vaccine mandates, passports and unrestrained COVID spread from 2021 into 2023, has now admitted that he and the state were wrong.
"If the impact of vaccines on transmission was limited at best, as is now mostly accepted, the law should have left more room for respect of freedom," Perrottet said in a recent speech, according to ABC Australia.
"Vaccines saved lives, but ultimately, mandates were wrong. People's personal choices shouldn't have cost them their jobs."
"When I became premier, we removed [vaccine mandates] or the ones we actually could, but this should have happened faster," he told the legislative assembly this week.
"If a pandemic comes again, we need to get a better balance encouraging people to take action whilst at the same time protecting people's fundamental liberty."
This isn’t nearly enough, but it’s still startling to see someone from one of the world’s most authoritarian COVID countries admit that their policies were ineffective and harmful, as well as being an infringement on fundamental liberties.
For perspective, has Joe Biden or Kamala Harris admitted that their illegal vaccine mandate was a mistake? That it was a mistake to bar unvaccinated visitors like Novak Djokovic from entering the country based on misinformation from Dr. Fauci?
Has the CDC acknowledged that their recommendations were laughably wrong, that their claims of vaccine efficacy against infection or transmission were a world-altering, historic failure? What about the media and their role in promoting that misinformation? Have they apologized?
Of course not. Politicians and their media partners don’t acknowledge mistakes, they don’t take responsibility for their actions. Especially when their actions have disastrous consequences. The only way these policies ever permanently end is if people like Perrottet admit they were wrong. Fauci, Biden and Harris never have, and never will. Which raises the uncomfortable thought that they’d reimpose those same restrictions again, if given the opportunity.
It’s reassuring to see at least one prominent politician admit they were wrong. There should be more.