Who is being U, Australia or Novak Djokovic?

[inheritancetrack]

Me, I'm in the you can't have your cake and eat it Novak, camp!

He's been told that he's free to leave the hotel anytime, just not into Australia. I really hope Australia doesn't cave in to him and his lawyers.

@StrangerYears

I'm Victorian.

We have been in lockdown (in Vic) longer than anywhere else in the world. 5km limit for travel/seeing family, no work outside the home unless a key worker (so no income for us as tradies) only supermarkets and pharmacies open. Kids home schooled. For a total of almost 300 days. Once 90 pct were vaxed we were told it would be heading to normal status.

Then this idiot comes along and craps on our progress because he is rich and famous. If he did come in, it makes our months of being locked up senseless.
I would say most Victorians are bloody angry at this shitshow

Off the point, but how do Australians feel about having gone through all that only to find that numbers are now rising quickly? Isn't it wrecking the economy?

I really hope Australia doesn't cave into him and his lawyers.
Me too.

@BashStreetKid
I think we are all battle weary and giving far fewer shits than we ever did.
The economy was already wrecked- so many shops /businesses gave up in lockdown 6 (Aug to Nov) and never reopened.
Lots and lots of people are leaving the state and a lot leaving the country (Brits and so on returning to UK).
It is a strange place to be at the moment

Off the point, but how do Australians feel about having gone through all that only to find that numbers are now rising quickly? Isn't it wrecking the economy?

I’m an Australian in the UK and it’s striking among friends and family how different their views are based on what state they’re in. There was never this difference before the pandemic.

As @StrangerYears describes, my Melbourne friends are battle weary. That’s a great description. It has been a really long hard couple of years but probably has them slightly more psychologically ready to deal with this and they can in particular see the difference vaccines are making vs the need for lockdowns previously. Ditto NSW family and friends to a lesser extent.

I have a lot of family and friends in Queensland and there are certainly a lot more jittery people. They’ve not had more than a short snap lockdown (a few days or a week) for a long while now and the mental adjustment to the case numbers they’re seeing must be huge.

My own parents, however, are totally blasé about it. They’re not taking risks but they’re boosted and figure it’s time to get on with stuff. The Queensland population seems to be really split between ‘CLOSE THE BORDERS NOW’ (and they’re talking state borders, not international - the idea that you can have zero Covid forever still has a lot of currency) and people like my parents who aren’t massively comfortable with the situation but think you have to open up sometime and with a very highly and recently vaccinated population you may as well get on with it.

Nb: totally unscientific sample based on People I Know and the odd Facebook group!

I'm in NSW and the results of our "opening back up" on 15th December are hitting us bloody hard now - to the extent that restrictions are being re-imposed as of tomorrow in terms of capping numbers in venues, minimising household mixing etc.
Our supermarkets are bare-shelves for certain items, because so many transport workers are off sick. One of my friends is a manager for the trains - 400+ staff off sick.
Delivery drivers for everywhere - off sick.
Length of iso for healthworkers REDUCED because there are so many off sick - they can't cope.
The numbers are skyrocketing because of "the economy" and it's falling to bits because so many people are off sick. The testing centres and hospitals are NOW starting to feel the overwhelm - because some twat in office decided that "they'd promised to open up, so they were going to do just that" despite omicron having just landed here.

They've also just announced that anyone working in health care has to have a mandatory 3rd vaccine/booster in NSW.

It is NOT going well here now - so for Novak to assume he can just flout the rules and do what he likes because he's a tennis star is a bit fucking much, in all honesty.

Interestingly, the border force are now also looking at a couple (3?) other tennis players who came in on medical exemptions too, to see if they should have been refused entry. 10play.com.au/theproject/articles/not-just-novak-australian-border-force-investigates-2-more-foreign-tennis-australia-medical-exemptions/tpa220106yhfwi
Renata Voracova has now been detained by ABF too.

@Chely

Australia are pathetic about the who covid thing in general

UK population 67.2M, deaths from Covid 150 000, fully vaccinated 77% Australian population 25.7M, deaths from Covid 2301, fully vaccinated 91.9%

It didn’t just happen by magic!

His father has now likened him to Jesus and how he was crucified

ffs

Novak is

Hahaha

Now Serbian politicians are saying that he was 'lured to Australia to be humiliated'.

With Voracova deciding to return home surely Novax has no chance of winning his appeal. He should just do the right thing and accept he can’t stay

@hesterstanhope - why are you comparing the % total population vaccinated in UK with the % eligible population vaccinated in Australia? That's a bit weird, maybe you just picked up two random figures and misunderstood?
Australian vaccination figures are great, but there really isn't a 20% discrepancy.

@JassyRadlett

Off the point, but how do Australians feel about having gone through all that only to find that numbers are now rising quickly? Isn't it wrecking the economy?

I’m an Australian in the UK and it’s striking among friends and family how different their views are based on what state they’re in. There was never this difference before the pandemic.

As @StrangerYears describes, my Melbourne friends are battle weary. That’s a great description. It has been a really long hard couple of years but probably has them slightly more psychologically ready to deal with this and they can in particular see the difference vaccines are making vs the need for lockdowns previously. Ditto NSW family and friends to a lesser extent.

I have a lot of family and friends in Queensland and there are certainly a lot more jittery people. They’ve not had more than a short snap lockdown (a few days or a week) for a long while now and the mental adjustment to the case numbers they’re seeing must be huge.

My own parents, however, are totally blasé about it. They’re not taking risks but they’re boosted and figure it’s time to get on with stuff. The Queensland population seems to be really split between ‘CLOSE THE BORDERS NOW’ (and they’re talking state borders, not international - the idea that you can have zero Covid forever still has a lot of currency) and people like my parents who aren’t massively comfortable with the situation but think you have to open up sometime and with a very highly and recently vaccinated population you may as well get on with it.

Nb: totally unscientific sample based on People I Know and the odd Facebook group!

Well described @JassyRadlett

Australian/Scandi family here and we have the same observations. The amount of pure anger from some Australian friends towards our country’s approach has been a bit shocking too to say the least, for some it’s become personal for some unknown reason which we really don’t get. It’s been a bit sad.

Also my partner haven’t been able to go see elderly and very sick parents for two years. Why should tennis be more important. Go Australia!

I'm a battle weary Melbournian. Not happy with the let it rip policy. The whole country is in disarray except for WA.

I’m actually a bit torn. It’s blatantly obvious that the fed gov would have given him an exemption if Vic had applied for one. this is consistent with fed gov not being able to take responsibility for anything despite bleating constantly about our personal responsibility. The rumour is they repeatedly asked the Vic gov to apply for an exemption.

Vic gov said no because they’re not stupid and forced the federal government to actually take a definitive stance which has led to this. So although he’s a bit of a dick Novak is also a bit of a political pawn.

Team Australia.

It’s not about whether I think Australia’s rules are sensible or not- if you want to visit a country then you have to abide by their rules, whether you personally agree with then or not. If you need to be vaccinated or have a medical exemption to obtain a visa, then you need to have one of those 2 things AND be able to prove it.

My understanding is that he obtained a visa for the state of Victoria to play, but did not meet the federal criteria and because federal regulations trump state regulations he was refused entry. I also understand that part of the issue is the medical exemption did not stand up to scrutiny (or at least he did not have the evidence to prove it, at least).

Again, you’d have thought a player of that profile should have been able to navigate the rules- or more likely has someone who organises it for him- and provide the medical evidence needed. I suspect he just did not think anyone would dare to stop him entering because the rules did not apply to him due to his high profile/fame.

I'm
Team Australia!

I'm not team Novax!

@Offmyfence

I'm Team Australia!

I'm not team Novax!

This 100%.

(I always preferred Rafa and Roger, but that's a separate issue).

As the lovely Rafa says, he is free to make his choices but he must know that every choice has consequences.

@Tealightsandd roger is mine, don't even think about preferring him 😂

Oh I do love Roger... But I'll leave him to you if you let me have Rafa

Team Australia. He claimed "medical exception" and has been unable to provide proof

[quote JustUseTheDoorSanta]@hesterstanhope - why are you comparing the % total population vaccinated in UK with the % eligible population vaccinated in Australia? That's a bit weird, maybe you just picked up two random figures and misunderstood?
Australian vaccination figures are great, but there really isn't a 20% discrepancy.[/quote]
I can see your point, however children over 5 cannot be vaccinated until next week.

Both figures show the percentage of eligible people vaccinated at this time.
95% of children in Australia are vaccinated for the other common diseases, so the uptake in this group is predicted to be higher than the general population.

Do you have access to whole population stats rather than the eligible data?

@hesterstanhope - the point is that you were comparing UK whole population with part of Australia's population. What you need to do is compare like with like. So full population, or only over 12s only, but not one from each and calling it a comparison.

@Notanotheruser111

I’m actually a bit torn. It’s blatantly obvious that the fed gov would have given him an exemption if Vic had applied for one. this is consistent with fed gov not being able to take responsibility for anything despite bleating constantly about our personal responsibility. The rumour is they repeatedly asked the Vic gov to apply for an exemption.

Vic gov said no because they’re not stupid and forced the federal government to actually take a definitive stance which has led to this. So although he’s a bit of a dick Novak is also a bit of a political pawn.

I'm not sure this is correct - isn't it the case that he satisfied the entry into the tournament (not VIC entry regulations) but didn't satisfy the federal regulations? Also not sure that the government would have given him an exemption if he applied.

The tennis association asked the government for clarity - clarity was given (ie he wouldn't satisfy the entry requirements if he applied for the visa he was applying for) and guidance was given as to which visa he should apply for if he were seeking to rely on a medical exemption (and what would constitute grounds for such exemption). There is no further room for exemptions or flex
for exemptions on vaccination grounds.

He chose to ignore this guidance (or his team were incompetent in not applying for the correct visa). I'm am hoping that he is asked to leave and not allowed to play if what I've read is correct. I will be listening to the court case on Monday with interest to see whether it has been reported in the media correctly. So holding out final judgement until I know the facts!!

@PrisonerofZeroCovid

If he hadn't felt the need to publicly gloat about his exemption he'd have probably got away with it. I honestly don't know why he's fighting deportation. It's not like he's going to be able to play the Open. Can you imagine the reaction from the crowd?

Apparently the worry is that he will be allowed to play while the lawyers argue his case. The expectation is that he will lose his case - but that the final judgment won't be known for a few weeks if not longer as it's such an important case and will be tested in every way. However, it is likely that while his case is being tried he will be "allowed to work" until its conclusion - meaning he will be free to play and will have long left the country when his case concludes in favour of the government and a deportation order issued. Nonsense really. I'm so cross about it.