Unjabbed Australian Parents Barred From Visiting Their Own Sick Kids In the Hospital

Brittany M. Hughes | February 3, 2022
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Beginning January 31, unvaccinated parents in Western Australia have been barred from visiting anyone in a state hospital – including their own sick children.

Reports state that West Australia Premier Matt McGowan enacted new rules barring unjabbed people from entering state medical facilities or nursing homes - including to visit their own kids – with exceptions made only for “compassionate” situations like “end of life care.” 
 


Australia has been inundated with new COVID cases as the mild but far more contagious Omicron variant has swept across the country – and the world – in recent weeks, breaking through vaccine barriers and infecting both the jabbed and unjabbed alike in high numbers even as hospitalizations and deaths continue to decline in many areas.

The mandate is problematic for two painfully obvious reasons: first, the government has no right to tell parents that they must get a vaccination they don’t want to accompany their sick child to the hospital, except perhaps to hold their hand while they die.

Secondly, while it may protect some against the most severe symptoms of the disease, the mandatory vaccine has thusfar failed to protect against a massive surge of COVID cases.

Australia has reported roughly 1.1 million COVID cases since the beginning of the pandemic nearly two years ago, with more than half of those occurring in the past two weeks, according to Reuters. Hospitals and medical facilities have reported being under pressure due to the surge, though that probably has a lot to do with the fact that much of the country’s medical staff are being forced to quarantine due to mandated COVID protocols, resulting in a massive shortage of hospital staff to deal with patients coming in for all sorts of ailments, COVID or not. In the state of Victoria alone, 4,000 hospital and 400 ambulance staff in the state were isolating as of mid-January, Reuters reported.

As of February 2, 79 percent of all Australians had gotten two doses of the COVID vaccine, with nearly 33 percent having also gotten the booster. The remaining 21 percent who aren’t vaccinated includes children and infants who have not yet been approved for the shot.

And yet, the government has decided to mandate a shot that doesn't actually protect against COVID infection or transmission just for parents to be with their own kids in the hospital.

Utter lunacy.

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