Victoria has failed, again

Today, Victoria surpassed New South Wales in daily case numbers. We are only 54 days into the current outbreak. NSW, the state where Gladys Berejiklian apparently did not lockdown hard enough and put the country at risk, had less than a third of the 867 cases Victoria counted at day 54 of its outbreak.

For a good month we endured leftists hounding our social media feeds, sooking on Twitter, whingeing to anyone who cared to listen that the NSW government was irresponsible and that their arrogance had come back to bite them. Except it didn’t. This was the classic early crow by Dan Andrews and Labor sycophants who once again have egg on their face.

Here is the stark reality:

Victoria locked down harder than NSW, but its cases have risen faster despite its lower population.

NSW is testing its population at a significantly higher rate. In the last 24 hours, it managed to test 132,279 people. Victoria, in comparison, tested only 49,450 people.

NSW is vaccinating its population much faster than Victoria, despite there being plentiful supply in both states. NSW now has over 60 percent of its population fully vaccinated. It expects to hit 70 percent on October 11. Victorians will need to wait another 43 days to reach this milestone.

Even today, the Victorian government refused to reduce the 6 week waiting period to receive the second Pfizer jab, despite there being adequate supply to reduce the gap.

To rub salt into the wound, pubs, restaurants, gyms and hairdressers will be reopening in NSW in less than a fortnight. By December 1st, the state will essentially return to normal. In Victoria, Daniel Andrews continues to dither.

Victorians have every right to feel pissed off. Melbourne holds the unenviable world record of 240 days in lockdown and counting, and people are justified to ask why.

Victoria has endured the most cases, the most deaths, and the most people leaving the state to seek solace elsewhere. The economy is broken and the social fabric has fractured. There is a reason why the anti-lockdown protests have been so fierce in Melbourne and essentially absent in Sydney: Daniel Andrews has brought it upon himself. You cannot force an entire state to commit to mass sacrifice, time and again, in the face of ongoing government incompetence, and expect the people to take it quietly.

At least New Zealand, a country that has essentially isolated itself from the rest of the world, its people can point to its low case numbers and death rate as justification for its sacrifices. Here in Victoria, the people can only envy our northern neighbours across the Murray River.

Unfortunately for Victorians, the failure will not stop there. Despite promising 4,000 new ICU beds along with additional staff training in April last year, the state currently only has 574 ICU beds available. Meanwhile, NSW has capacity for 1550 fully staffed ICU beds.

Today, Andrews was on morning television lecturing Victorians about maintaining the integrity of the health system. A health system he has failed to adequately invest in:

“It’s a very precious thing, our health system, and we need to be careful to manage those additional patients. I’m not going to give to our nurses a fight they can’t win. It will be very tough for them in the weeks and months ahead.”

Words are cheap, Premier. Where are the 4,000 ICU beds your government promised?

He was actually asked this question last week and he flatly denied that the promise had been made. Unfortunately for Andrews, the video footage and his own press release says otherwise.

So Victorians can only look on in despair as their lockdown fails to stem cases, NSW exceeds it in vaccination rates, and its health system is less prepared for re-opening, leaving Andrews with the perfect excuse to inflict lockdown on his people for longer.

At every turn during this pandemic, Victorians have been left scratching their heads as to how one state government can get the balance right and its own state government can get it so wrong.

The #istandwithdan crowd will remain loyal until the end, but more than 18 months of facts don’t lie.