Learn the right lessons from Australia’s barmy shutdown
It is hard to say whether history will look warmly, or otherwise, on Australia’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. When the virus first emerged, the country shut down – and shut down hard. It is only in recent weeks that even Aussies, of whom there are so many in London, were even able to contemplate the idea of hugging their parents or their grandchildren.
In our sports pages today we cover the Barmy Army – the group of loud, raucous, and dedicated English cricket fans who follow the national team all over the world. On the night of December 8, when they should be in the stands in Brisbane, they will instead be in a bar near Victoria railway station. While Aussie cricketers may benefit from their absence, it is hard to see that the country will. Australia’s decision to cut themselves off from the world has consequences, not just in bar takings, but in how the world sees that increasingly distant land.
There are lessons to be learned here. The West End is still a long way from what it should be, even as the City and other parts of the capital gradually come back to life. On news of the omicron variant, it made sense to put in place travel restrictions here in the UK. But as more evidence creeps out that last weekend’s panic may have been just that, it is hard to see the justification for those travel restrictions lasting for all that much longer.
The capital needs tourism. It pays the bills of the pubs and restaurants and taxi firms and nightclubs and souvenir shops and retailers, and without it, hundreds of thousands of young Londoners (no matter where they are born) would be out of a job.
Travel bans are an easy answer to the difficult questions thrown up by Covid-19. But London has always thrived as an open, tolerant city, and so has the UK. Testing, vaccinations, and monitoring are the answer to this new strain, not blanket bans and no entry signs.
These new restrictions should not last a moment longer than absolutely necessary.