Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews was nowhere to be seen at the Thursday a press conference to report to the Victorian public the number of Covid cases had soared towards 200 – a day after he declared his dogged battle for a ‘Covid-zero’ state was finally over.
Instead, his hapless Health Minister Martin Foley was rolled out to front the cameras on Thursday to explain why the premier had ditched his quest for ‘doughnut days’.
Victorian Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton – the architect of the state’s hardline approach to tackling the virus – was also absent as Mr Foley attempted to explain the change in plan was all down to the science.
‘You’ve got to follow the advice of the science. Delta has changed the script,’ he said.
The Labor government’s capitulation comes as Victoria’s active Covid cases surged to 176 – the biggest number in more than one year.
The outbreak in Melbourne now appears out of control and following the same ominous trajectory to the outbreak in Sydney.
Meanwhile, the sycophants who have blindly stood behind Mr Andrews during what will be the world’s longest lockdown have started to turn.
It hit like a freight train on Wednesday as the man dubbed ‘Chairman Dan’ declared to his locked-down state he had finally given up on the quest to eliminate Covid-19.
The backflip came amid rumblings within his own health department that he had lost not only the state’s confidence in his leadership, but their own.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has lost support among some of his most loyal followers
Premier Daniel Andrews’ followers are starting to turn, but many will continue to beat the drum
Covid-19 leaked out of hotel quarantine last year and caused havoc. Victorians were locked away until the virus vanished. After six lockdowns, the war on Covid zero has finally ended in Victoria
On Thursday, Melbourne’s The Age newspaper published an extraordinary editorial aimed at the premier titled: ‘Victoria Can’t Go On Like This’.
The editorial pleaded with Mr Andrews to free trapped Victorians, who by the end of September will have been locked down longer than any other citizens on the planet.
‘Wednesday’s announced ‘easing’ was a harsh and cruel blow,’ it cried.
In a long overdue dose of reality; The champions of Andrews’ Covid leadership throughout months of lockdowns and hundreds of needless deaths, had finally turned against him.
‘There comes a point, and The Age believes that point has been reached, where the damage caused by the harshest and longest lockdowns in the country needs to be more seriously factored in,’ it stated.
The content of the editorial marked an epic about face for the publication, which has been a staunch supporter of the premier’s hardline Covid playbook.
It was met with immediate disdain from its left leaning, ‘I stand with Dan’ readership, most of whom have breezed through lockdown in comfy homes with large gardens, with the most ‘respected’ comment under the editorial receiving hundreds of ‘likes’.
‘Not a helpful contribution from the Age. What we can’t go on like is tantrums like this editorial. The state might have hit the figurative wall with the finish line in sight, but to throw up ones collective arms in despair will not cut the mustard,’ the reader commented.
‘You are not the same as the thousand moron march of a few weeks ago, but you are expressing the same irrational and childish emotions.’
Covid testing sites are set to be bombarded with Melburnians as Premier Daniel Andrews concedes the fight for zero has failed
Melbourne remains a ghost town while Mr Andrews works out how to let people once again attempt to live their lives
Premier Daniel Andrews brags to the state about reaching Covid-zero last year. By then, his mismanagement of the virus had killed 800
‘Today’s a good day,’ Mr Andrews tweeted out with a selfie on reaching Covid-zero. ‘Said I’d go a little higher up the shelf. Here’s to you, Victoria,’ he added alongside an image of Starward Whisky.
But others backed the public slap down.
‘It’s not a tantrum, it’s an expression of the justified thoughts of a swiftly increasing number of Victorians. We are sick of this,’ one reader posted.
Mr Andrews had convinced his followers he would be the man to tame the virus.
In July, in an outburst of hubris, he reminded Victorians that he had again ‘seen off’ Delta, which is something no other jurisdiction had achieved.
After allowing Covid-19 to seep out of his bungled hotel quarantine scheme, more than 800 elderly Victorians died as Mr Andrews and his health advisers tried to clean up the mess.
His solution was, and always had been, was to lock Victorians up.
Health advice told him playgrounds and schools ought be closed, businesses sacrificed and generations of Victorians buried in near silence.
On October 26, the day Mr Andrews announced his ‘Lockdown 2.0’ restrictions would ease in Melbourne, Victoria recorded zero active Covid cases for the first time in more than four months.
It was dubbed ‘doughnut day’ and Mr Andrews and the state’s Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton celebrated by treating themselves to one.
The premier posted a photograph of himself beaming in joy as he was about to tuck into the fried dough.
He would post photos of himself enjoying a whiskey and continued to brag about the ‘doughnut days’ all the way up until Covid taught him what most experts had been saying for a good year.
Covid could not be defeated.
Victoria Police saluted Victorians for reaching Covid-zero last year. The mission has failed
Premier Daniel Andrews has come under fire for near on a year for chasing doughnuts. He now concedes the mission has failed
Victorian children have been told they can return to the park as Premier Daniel Andrews changes the goal posts by the day
Premier Daniel Andrews was called out yesterday for his reasons for closing Victorian playgrounds two weeks ago. He had shut them for months last year too.
Mr Andrews’ admission on Wednesday looked like a man playing by the political playbook.
By summer, Victorians ought have reached the vaccination milestone that the premier claims ‘might’ allow us to roam free once more.
The man who stood by and claimed to have known nothing about the decision that condemned hundreds to die last year has already made it clear he believes he can win next year’s election.
History has been rewritten before, it will likely happen again.
When former Labor premier Joan Kirner died in 2015 aged 76, left-leaning media gushed over her while taking swipes at others who it claimed had treated her unfairly during her leadership in the 1990s.
She of course had cost Victorians billions of dollars with the sale of the State Bank and hurt the educations of a generation of children with her slap dash implementation of the VCE – her answer to the Higher School Certificate.
Until now, Mr Andrews has masterfully manipulated much of the mainstream media coverage throughout the pandemic, with nightly news bulletins all but ignoring his repeated flip-flopping on Covid policy and advice.
Former premier Joan Kirner brought Victoria to its knees in the 1990s. She now has hospitals named after her
If Mr Andrews wins the next election, he won’t be the first Melburnian to have bounced back from scandal on the back of short memories and forgotten history.
Former AFL footballer Wayne Carey not only bedded his team mates’ wife, he glassed a girlfriend and sexually assaulted a woman as she walked down the street.
Carey went onto tell ABC’s Enough Rope in 2008 he wasn’t being genuine when he apologised for the drunken 1995 incident.
He has since been reborn as a regular television identity and columnist for The Age newspaper.
AFL bad boy Brendan Fevola is now considered the darling of Melbourne radio.
Lest we forget his many disgraces not so long ago, which included allegations of sexual assault at the Brownlow Medal.
With Covid cases set to soar in the coming months, the Andrews Government spin machine is about to hit fifth gear.