The retreat from Covid hysteria in Australia has been painfully slow and uneven.

In one dispatch from the virus overreaction front, the news is good, if long overdue. The South Australian Health Department (SA Health) has, after more than three years of alarmism and public health messaging, abandoned its last foxhole and announced that its Covid vaccination mandate for ‘medical staff with patient-facing roles’ is no more.

The 245 medical practitioners, ambos, dentists, allied health practitioners, disability workers, and social workers who were sacked for exercising their basic human right to control what goes into their bodies will now be able to get their old jobs back. Sort of. Returning employees will have the charge of ‘misconduct’ recorded against their personnel record. SA Health bosses couldn’t resist a swift kick to the shins…

In its partial retreat, SA Health admits no error or misjudgement concerning the old policy of mandatory employee vaccination, citing increased Covid immunity in the population as a reason to change their position. The department is still ‘recommending’ that all staff be vaccinated but, at long last, health officials have recognised that pretty near everyone has had (or will get) Covid. Thus, naturally-acquired immunity exists within the community. What we will not see is an admission that vaccines had little to do with ‘increased Covid immunity in the population’ because that would mean publicly acknowledging their monumental failure. SA Health’s belated and begrudging retreat from its last Covid stronghold is an example of bureaucratic foot-dragging and bottom-covering at its worst.

Meanwhile, in Paris, Covid hysteria has returned. Australia appears to be one of the only countries bothering with Covid testing, isolation, and mask wearing.

In all the hoopla about the unveiling of the Australian Olympic uniform, no one thought to mention that face masks would be part of the green-and-gold outfit, but the 41-member Australian swimming team arrived in Paris fully kitted out. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade would approve. It ‘strongly encourages’ Australians travelling abroad to mask up. Meanwhile, French health authorities recommend masks be worn ‘in enclosed and small spaces, and at large gatherings’ (which pretty much covers all bases where humans gather).

The current sports carnival promised to be a ‘return to normal’ after the soulless outing in Japan in 2021 which played to empty stadiums and diminished TV viewership (down 27 per cent compared to Rio in 2016) but Australia, apparently, is not quite ready to return to normal just yet.

In spite of the lingering Covid charade being acted out by the Australian Olympic contingent, five of the thirteen-member women’s water polo team tested positive to Covid (none of them are ‘particularly unwell’, according to Australia’s chef de Mission,) whilst two members of the athletics squad were also ‘isolating but have tested negative’. The infectious athletes are permitted to train but with, you guessed it, ‘protocols in place’. The public health Covid theatre Downunder is running longer than Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap.

There are some who say that Australia escaped the worst of the ‘pandemic’ because of our ‘tough’ policy response, but the Covid encore in Paris is a reminder that, in many ways, Australia experienced the worst of Covid mania.