Like last weekend, thousands of people demonstrated this Sunday, in several Australian cities, against the policy promoted by the Government to contain the advance of the pandemic and the mandatory nature of the full vaccination scheme.
In the center of the city of Melbourne, in the state of Victoria, more than a thousand people gathered peacefully with Australian flags and banners against vaccination and sanitary restrictions, while shouting slogans like “my body, my decision.”
A small but prominent part of the protesters have ties to the ultra-right and conspiracy theories, according to the public broadcaster ABC.
The authorities of Victoria, the second most populated state in the country and the one most affected by the pandemic, determined the obligation of full vaccination against COVID-19 to access most places and work centers.
Melbourne, which last October became the city of the world with more days accumulated in confinement strict, now seeks to restore normality with laws that penalize people who have chosen not to be vaccinated.
In the state of Queensland, thousands of people demonstrated against vaccines, lockdowns and the mandatory use of masks.
The rally in the town of Coolangatta, near the border with the state of New South Wales, came hours after Queensland authorized the travel of vaccinated people from other Australian states.
Australia, after several problems that delayed the vaccination campaign, has managed to catch up and become one of the countries with the highest rate of inoculation, since 89 percent of those over 16 years old have received two doses.
After closing its borders and implementing early lockdowns, Australia kept the pandemic under control, but the delta variant It was more difficult to control and it triggered the infections which led the health authorities to aim for vaccination.
The oceanic country, with 25 million inhabitants, accumulates 222,000 infections and about 2,000 deaths, very low figures compared to other countries of similar size.
The truth is that the controversy over Australia’s health policy generated controversy in that country.
In the week, police arrested three people who escaped from downtown Howard Springs, a complex near Darwin in the Northern Territory, built to quarantine returnees.
Officers found them after a chase Wednesday. They had all tested negative the day before.
Australians have spent 20 months under some of the strictest border rules in the world, in an effort to keep the pandemic in check.
Some restrictions were relaxed last month and the government had announced its intention to lift the restrictions from the middle of the month, but it is not yet clear whether the new Omicron variant will force a postponement of the measure.
With information from agencies
GRB
