A tale of two cities is unfolding in Sydney as police and army patrols enforce stay-at-home orders in poor suburbs at the centre of the growing virus outbreak, while richer, more vaccinated areas watch on.
Officials sent hundreds of police into the migrant-heavy, poorer outer southwestern areas of Australia’s biggest city yesterday. The suburbs are already under tighter orders than other areas due to low vaccination rates and rising case numbers.
Vaccination rates in poorer areas hover at 13 per cent while rates in the wealthier east exceed 25 per cent — a disparity described this week by Mary-Louise McLaws, an epidemiologist at New South Wales University, as “shameful”, reflecting the area’s disadvantages including language barriers and relative impoverishment.
Even the internet access needed to book a vaccination is more scarce in the southwest, where median personal incomes are half those of the city’s east.
Thousands of their children, facing final exams in October, were told yesterday that they would not be returning to their schools “for the foreseeable future”. Yet pupils outside the pandemic’s southwestern hotspots may be back in their classrooms next month.
Advertisement
The 300 soldiers that Scott Morrison, the prime minister, sent to enforce stay-at-home orders are mostly patrolling the southwest — a particularly unwelcome sight for residents, many of whom have escaped war-ravaged countries in the Middle East.
Steve Christou, a mayor in the region, said: “A lot of them are refugees. They’ve escaped hardship, they’ve escaped war-torn countries — instances where the army has not represented a good experience for them.
“To come out and say you’re going to put the army out on the streets . . . is very insensitive.”
However, officials believe the show of force is necessary amid reports of people visiting friends and family, spreading the virus.
Sydney is entering its sixth week of restrictions, which began after a visiting US flight crew member transmitted the virus to an unmasked driver. The number of new daily cases rose yesterday to almost 300, a new record.
Advertisement
Gladys Berejiklian, 50, the New South Wales premier, said she expected the numbers to keep rising.
Melbourne, the second largest city, entered its sixth lockdown on Thursday, joining the third largest city, Brisbane, which is also locked down.
