It’s the mantra of the World Health Organization and globalists everywhere: The coronavirus does not respect borders.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu keeps telling us so: “This virus does not respect borders.”
G-20 leaders last month pledged to act as a “united front” against the virus that “respects no borders.”
Chinese officials agreed the virus “does not respect borders or discriminate between races.”
“Coronavirus offers an excuse to close borders,” declared the left-wing Guardian newspaper this week. “That would be a mistake.”
But this makes no sense. It is ideology, not science.
Closing a country’s borders is the ultimate in social distancing. And, as we see from the island nations of Australia and New Zealand, sealing their borders in mid-March was crucial to their successful efforts to control the coronavirus.
Both countries ignored the WHO’s advice and, as a result, have escaped relatively unscathed from the pandemic, garnering international praise for their handling of the crisis.
With fewer than four deaths per 1 million population attributed to the coronavirus, they compare favorably with 178 in the United States, 327 in the United Kingdom and 510 in Spain, according to John Hopkins University’s global-mortality analyses.
Both countries took their cue initially from the US. When President Trump imposed a ban on flights from China on Jan. 31, Australia followed suit one day later and New Zealand two days later.
Trump was lambasted at the time by his political opponents as a racist and xenophobe.
“This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia — hysterical xenophobia — and fearmongering,” Joe Biden railed the next day.
China condemned the travel restrictions as “racist,” despite the fact it had sealed its Hubei-province borders a week earlier, albeit while wilfully allowing international flights to share the virus with an unsuspecting world.
Echoing China, the WHO issued a warning that Trump’s travel ban would increase “fear and stigma, with little public health benefit.”
But for Australia, in particular, the timing was critical, as tens of thousands of Chinese students were beginning to fly back into the country after the Australian summer break.
Trump’s decision gave Prime Minister Scott Morrison a convenient excuse to impose his own travel ban in defiance of aggressive lobbying from the airlines and university sector, which is heavily reliant on China.
From mid-March, all overseas arrivals had to self-isolate for two weeks, with police doing spot checks.
On March 20, Australia and New Zealand finally closed their borders to all foreign nationals.
Other international arrivals subsequently had to be quarantined in hotel rooms under police guard for two weeks. One third of those quarantined had tested positive for COVID-19 by the time they were released.
Some Australian states also closed their borders to domestic travelers.
The effectiveness of stringent border measures is illustrated by Australia’s biggest mistake. It allowed the Ruby Princess cruise ship to dock in Sydney on March 19 and disgorge 2,700 passengers to spread the virus around the country.
The ship has been responsible for about one in eight of Australia’s coronavirus cases, including more than 20 deaths.
A criminal investigation is under way into a cover-up by the cruise-ship operator, but what the case tells you is that without border closures, every arriving aircraft and ship would have been a potential Ruby Princess and Australia’s caseload would have been exponentially higher.
On Wednesday, Australia, population 25 million, reported just 19 new COVID-19 infections, bringing its total confirmed cases to 6,746.
New Zealand, with one-fifth the population, announced this week it had “eliminated” the virus. It recorded just two new cases Wednesday, bringing its total to 1,474 confirmed and probable cases.
Of course, border security was not all it took to control the virus Down Under.
Australia and New Zealand had the benefit of geographical isolation that gave them a roughly two-week grace period to watch how the virus was crippling other nations and prepare their hospitals.
Both boast per-capita testing among the highest in the world. Australia had conducted almost 550,000 tests by Wednesday with 1.4 percent positive results. New Zealand had tested almost 130,000, with a similar positive rate.
Both instituted lockdowns of their populations in March but New Zealand, under left-wing prime minister Jacinda Ardern, opted for a draconian “elimination” strategy, with most people confined to their homes and businesses shuttered.
Australia, with a conservative government, went for a less stringent “suppression” model in which the construction industry kept working, as did hairdressers, liquor stores, shopping malls, supermarkets, food delivery, banks and pharmacies. Schools were not ordered shut though most children stayed home.
Both countries wound up with a similar per-capita death rate and case numbers.
The moral of the story is that, contrary to globalist dogma, border security is crucial to a nation’s sovereignty, prosperity and health. Also, taking advice from the WHO is a fatal error.
Do us a favor, Bill: Resign!
Mayor de Blasio has to resign. Tolerating his incompetence is a luxury the no longer can afford.
He already has done more harm than good during the pandemic. The last thing we need is him and his wife screwing up the city’s recovery.
His rancid tweet Tuesday attacking the “Jewish community” and siccing cops on a Hasidic funeral in Williamsburg was the last straw.
He has pushed the release of inmates from jail so that a city under quarantine took on an added air of menace. The ballooning homelessness problem that he created only exacerbated the spread of the virus and has made the subways unbearable.
He is a good part of the reason New York was hit harder by the virus than any other city. Now, with all the problems the city has, he has appointed his wife to help lead the recovery and squander more money.
The city would do better with no mayor than one more minute of de Blasio.
The din of lawlessness
Noise complaints to the city have soared 22 percent while New Yorkers have been locked down.
But for some people, those figures are not simply a nuisance but a sign of breakdown in law and order.
That’s the way residents of one Upper West Side apartment building feel about the youths who park their cars, smoke weed, drink and blast music all night on their street.
One resident, Joe, says a “neighbor has started throwing eggs out windows to get them to stop.”
To no avail. Where are the cops?
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