Since its emergence in late 2019, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a global pandemic that is impacting on human health and national economies. From February 2020, the Australian Government introduced a range of policies and measures to respond to COVID-19.
INTERACTIVE:
The largest chunk of this, $1.9 billion, will be invested over five years into Australia s delay-plagued vaccination rollout.
The funding injection will help Australian health authorities distribute and administer vaccines, record and monitor data, and support the states and territories.
The Budget also provided for the purchase of extra vaccine doses, which the government said would bring Australia s total stockpile to 170 million.
A further $1.5 billion will be provided for other COVID-19 measures, including funding for telehealth, coronavirus testing, and support for remote communities.
This will include $7.1 million for the Beyond Blue COVID-19 Mental Wellbeing Support Service, and $11.2 million to support Indigenous communities in regional and remote Australia.
Australia has various advantages as an island continent. It is monumental and only accessible in the most impractical ways. It is discouragingly far and almost impossible to invade without a huge investment of personnel and material. The decision to place convicts on the island by the British was audaciously cruel and illogical, setting a precedent for future decisions by Australian governments to send undesirables to distant, inaccessible outposts, at cost.
But distance has not spared the country from the COVID-19 pandemic. Assisted by human error and misjudgement, quarantine defences were breached as they will no doubt continue to be. In Victoria, it proved most costly, leading to community transmission in a deadly second wave with a single-day peak of 725 cases in August. In the largest state in the country, New South Wales, pride was taken at developing a contact tracing system to deal with arrivals from outside Australia. Withering judgment, notably by the Morrison federal gove
Opinion – Binoy Kampmark Australia has various advantages as an island continent. It is monumental and only accessible in the most impractical ways. It is discouragingly far and almost impossible to invade without a huge investment of personnel and material. The decision to place …
Australia has various advantages as an island continent. It is monumental and only accessible in the most impractical ways. It is discouragingly far and almost impossible to invade without a huge investment of personnel and material. The decision to place convicts on the island by the British was audaciously cruel and illogical, setting a precedent for future decisions by Australian governments to send undesirables to distant, inaccessible outposts, at cost.