To say I’m fed up to the teeth with the restric­tions Covid has imposed on my life is an under­state­ment pret­ty much every­one in the known world can make. But what irks me even more is the minor­i­ty who, against all avail­able sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence and con­cern for the com­mon good, oppose vac­ci­na­tions. So here­with a shoutout to how Aus­tralia has dealt with Novak Djokovic.

Pun­ish­ing those who are unvac­ci­nat­ed because they have deep-seat­ed rea­sons for not trust­ing the author­i­ties, due to pover­ty or eth­nic back­grounds that have mar­gin­alised them, is a prob­lem to be over­come, not grounds for more discrimination.
Djokovic, how­ev­er, dou­ble-fault­ed with unforced errors.
In a live Face­book chat with fel­low Ser­bian ath­letes, the world’s num­ber one ranked ten­nis play­er said: “Per­son­al­ly I am opposed to vac­ci­na­tion and I wouldn’t want to be forced by some­one to take a vac­cine in order to be able to travel.”
The redun­dan­cy at the begin­ning of his asser­tion qual­i­fies as a “let” at best. Added  to his on the record sug­ges­tion that pol­lut­ed water can be puri­fied by pos­i­tive think­ing, it goes some way to dis­qual­i­fy­ing any claims Mr Djokovic may have for being “seed­ed” when it comes to med­ical mat­ters.  One also has to won­der what’s in the bot­tles he swigs dur­ing set breaks.

And how for­tu­nate for him that big mon­ey Grand Slam events aren’t held in any of the more than 120 coun­tries that require a yel­low fever vac­ci­na­tion (with a certificate).
Some of those include oth­er dis­eases on their required jab list.

          RESPONSIBILITY, NOT EXEMPTIONS

Even for a non-ten­nis fan, Djokovic’s skill is a delight to watch. The ded­i­ca­tion, gru­elling work and sac­ri­fice required to reach the pin­na­cle of any sport are to be admired. How­ev­er, being an elite ath­lete is not a qual­i­fi­ca­tion for exemp­tions from rules that apply to mere mor­tals. I would argue that the exact oppo­site applies. Top flight ath­letes who refuse to get a Covid vac­ci­na­tion jeop­ar­dise team­mates and short-change fans. Those who com­plain they are mere­ly exer­cis­ing their rights and don’t have to be “role mod­els” need to give seri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion to their sta­tus. Fame and large (often obscene­ly so) pay cheques and endorse­ment fees come with the respon­si­bil­i­ty to use their influ­ence well. That includes not using it to con­tra­dict sci­en­tists who’ve ded­i­cat­ed years to becom­ing pre­em­i­nent in their fields of expertise.
Six promi­nent health experts who advised U.S. Pres­i­dent Joe Biden “called for more aggres­sive use of vac­cine man­dates, which have drawn fierce oppo­si­tion from Repub­li­cans, and said the nation need­ed a dig­i­tal ver­i­fi­ca­tion sys­tem for vac­ci­na­tion — so-called vac­cine passports…”

In Italy, where peo­ple con­sid­er it their right to treat speed lim­its, tax­es, build­ing laws and oth­er rules and gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tions more as sug­ges­tions than set-in-stone pro­ce­dures, enter­ing a restau­rant and using pub­lic trans­port requires a “Cer­ti­fi­cazione Verde Covid-19” (a Covid-19, Euro­pean Union “green passport”).
I’ve yet to see any­one argue about hav­ing to pro­duce one, or con­test wear­ing a face mask on pub­lic trans­port or in a store. More than 75 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion is ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed and a manda­to­ry third dose for peo­ple over 50 (the medi­an age of the pop­u­la­tion is 47) is about to become law.  So, what to make of peo­ple and places like the U.S. and France, where sig­nif­i­cant, or at least vir­u­lent­ly vocal mem­bers of the pub­lic and the politi­cians they slav­ish­ly sup­port, decry Covid reg­u­la­tions and restric­tions on the grounds of indi­vid­ual rights?
“Life lib­er­ty and the pur­suit of hap­pi­ness” in the U.S. con­sti­tu­tion isn’t fol­lowed by “at the expense of the com­mon good”
Nor is the French Rev­o­lu­tion slo­gan “Lib­erté, Egal­ité, Fra­ter­nité” (Lib­er­ty, Equal­i­ty. Fraternity).

                                      PAY THE PRICE

I sug­gest that those who tru­ly believe an atti­tude of “I’m alright Jack, pull up the lad­der” is the way to live, should prac­tice it in full mea­sure and car­ry a card that says they refuse all treat­ment if they con­tract Covid. For good mea­sure, pas­sen­gers who dis­rupt flights by refus­ing to com­ply with mask-wear­ing and oth­er Covid pre­ven­tion rules should be dropped off at the near­est air­port on the flight route, made to pay for the diver­sion and banned from all airlines.
As for ‘Novax’ Djokovic, it will be inter­est­ing to see if he stands on his prin­ci­ples and doesn’t com­plain if (make that when) he’s booed off the next ten­nis court he’s allowed to play on.

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