Opinion | Coronavirus Australia: Djokovic saga a sideshow next to dismal public health policy failures

The twists and turns of the unvaccinated tennis star’s fight to play in the Australian Open in Melbourne pale in comparison to the hard reality of empty supermarket shelves, an overburdened health system and vaccine shortages that Melburnians struggle with daily

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Published: 6:45am, 19 Jan 2022Updated: 2:00pm, 19 Jan 2022

“I just read that Australians are calling that idiot Novax Djocovid,” read the WhatsApp message from my friend. Yes, indeed they were. Watching the international news coverage of the Djokovic drama in my former hometown has been a salient lesson on how news narratives are constructed and how sport, border control and the pandemic get spun in Australian politics.

I can report that for many people in Melbourne the issue was a sideshow to the daily reality of a dismal public health policy failure. There is the anxiety over a desperate shortage of rapid antigen tests, supply delays in booster shots and a health system collapsing under the strain of the neo-liberal obsession with “living with the virus” with zero planning.

On the day Djokovic was put on a plane, at least 19 people died of Covid-19 in Australia. Two days later, another 77 died. If they had all died in a fire or car accident, it would have made the news as a tragedy. In Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s version of “living with the virus”, they are mere statistics.

What was missed in the breathless pursuit of Djokovic’s paperwork missteps was what Melbourne people have been living through these past weeks. Right now, supermarket shelves are empty and businesses are shuttered because so many people cannot work due to being sick with the coronavirus. Hospital emergency wards are closed. Elective surgery and dental visits are cancelled.

Empty shelves for delicatessen products are seen at a supermarket in Sydney on January 12. The recent spike in Covid-19 infections has caused major logistical disruptions, with staff members, truck drivers and distribution centre workers among those forced to stay at home with the virus or awaiting test results. Photo: AAP/dpa

In a city consistently voted “the world’s most liveable” in one of the world’s wealthiest countries, residents can no longer expect an ambulance to come in time in an emergency because the taxpayer-funded system of free health care is under pressure from dealing with Covid-19.