The Next Step: Quarantining Citizens With Covid

Australia Considers Quarantining Citizens With COVID-19

JD Heyes

What is going on with Western “democracies” in the age of COVID-19, a virus that does, indeed, cause deaths but not in 99 percent of people who get it?

We’re seeing an extremely disturbing trend among democracies in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere: Creeping authoritarianism leading to extreme measures, and all being justified because of the novel coronavirus.

The virus has been used to justify endless lockdowns, restrictions on businesses, travel bans, and the destruction of civil and constitutional liberties including freedom of religion and freedom of speech and expression.

And now, in Australia, another Western democracy, the virus may be used to justify isolating citizens in quarantined captivity in the Outback.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week:

Australia has relied on one of the world’s most aggressive quarantine programs to keep the coronavirus at bay.

Now, one leader wants to go further by housing returned travelers in Outback camps far from cities as new Covid-19 variants threaten the country’s success.

The premier of Queensland state wants to repurpose camps designed for resources workers as isolation hubs in remote scrubland where temperatures can top 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

It follows an outbreak of a highly contagious coronavirus strain at a quarantine hotel in state capital Brisbane, Australia’s third-largest city with a population of about 2.5 million people.

“I think with this new strain, we have to put all options on the table and these are sensible, rational options,” Annastacia Palaszczuk, who was re-elected as Queensland premier in October, said.

The WSJ reported that one reason why she was reelected was due to her “center-left government’s tough measures to contain” the virus.

Since when did Australians agree to isolation hundreds of miles in one of the country’s least-hospitable regions? And does she really believe locking away sick people in an isolated quarantine camp is “sensible” and “rational?”

What is going on with our democratic leaders?

Yes, in recent weeks new strains of the virus have been discovered — but that’s what viruses do, they mutate. These new strains, however, are no more deadly than the original strain, so why the excessive, liberty-stealing isolation?

Here’s how they justify it in Australia.

“Underpinning the logic of using workers’ camps to house returned travelers is the potential for health authorities to get on top of outbreaks quickly and limit their spread. Other positives include access to fresh air and exercise for those in isolation, officials say,” the WSJ reports.

Got that? Stealing liberty and limiting freedoms is good for you. Actually, it’s good for those in power, who are never going to subject themselves to similar rural isolation.

They’re too important, you see.

“There’s no reason why we couldn’t do something similar here in Queensland or if not around the country,” Palaszczuk told the WSJ, adding that she’s going to bring up the idea with Prime Minister Scott Morrison and other territorial premiers in the coming days.

Make no mistake, this is not good. Never in the history of modern democracies have citizens endured such a massive assault on their civil liberties.

In the U.S., our constitutional rights are not contingent on whether or not there is an outbreak of a viral illness, especially one that is far less deadly than we’ve been led to believe.

Americans — and free citizens everywhere — should be trusted to make their own judgments and decisions about the risks they do or do not want to take. We don’t need a nanny state functionary telling us how to live our lives.