Novak Djokovic's Visa Cancelled by Australian Minister for Immigration

Right, it should but that's not the issue.

Right again, Australian politicians have fucked up their response to COVID on multiple occasions but so have other many countries—name one that hasn’t! And I include Serbia in that lot, it having only 50% of its citizens vaccinated; currently, it has one of the worst vaccination records in all Europe.

Leaving Australia aside for the moment, there are principles at stake here that are beyond Djokovic's case. Firstly, Djokovic brought these troubles upon himself:

1. He was fully aware of Australia’s tight COVID vaccination requirements and visa requirements long before he arrived in Australia—as his visit was a point of discussion in the world’s press weeks beforehand, yet he chose not to be vaccinated well ahead of the time of his visit. The question is why.

2. The fact that he had COVID previously is a lame excuse for thinking that he could disobey or ignore Australia’s immigration rules (no one really believes that, as he and his team would have known them to an absolute tee). It is very clear that he arrogantly and blatantly violated immigration requirements and it's widely accepted among many that he really doesn't have a valid excuse. His excuse of making a mistake simply doesn't stand up.

3. He lied about his travel status prior to traveling to Australia. To blatantly lie on any county's immigration form and one is playing with fire, especially so when the lie is easily found out (as here). Even idiots know that this is the quickest way of being refused entry to a country. Why Djokovic chose to lie and risk everything is open to question, however my opinion is that it was sheer arrogance and the fact that he is so used to getting his own way that he thought he could wing it or bullshit his way into the country.

4. Irrespective of Serbia’s position upon vaccination, Djokovic is a person of substantial means and he could have easily had himself vaccinated well ahead of time yet he deliberately chose not to. Moreover, if he is an anti-vaxxer or conscientious objector then he should have told the whole world ages ago but he chose not to. The same goes for any medical exemptions he may have had.

5. As a person on the world stage, he would have known that being unvaccinated would bring strong controversy for the very reason that he was setting a very bad example—a bad example that if followed by many—would lead to increased deaths from the pandemic. There is no doubt that among his huge followers and fan base there would be some, perhaps even many, who would follow his example and not be as lucky with COVID infection as he was. Therefore, many, many others view his stance as being selfish, self-centered and ill considerate of the lives of others. There is also the fact that Djokovic has never bothered or taken the time to explain his position. To many, this implies that he has something to hide. Moreover, it is fanciful to believe that both he and his team would have been unaware of this and the potential damage to his reputation because of his stance. Frankly, it's hard to understand why he has been so silent on the matter, perhaps he thought that the controversy would bring even more attention to himself.

6. Australia's bad treatment of Djokovic upon entry and the fact that those involved in detaining him did not afford him procedural fairness has essentially nothing to with the revocation of his visa by the Minister; they are separate issues except for the notoriety that they've brought.

7. Djokovic and his team must have been fully aware of the heightened tensions in Australia over COVID, as they've been world news for months. It is even more relevant that his destination was Melbourne, which has been the world's most locked-down city for all of the time that COVID has been active. It just isn't possible to believe that he was unaware of the political implications of this, which are that Melbournians (and many other Australians) have been hit hard by COVID and that many citizens have been trapped overseas during the pandemic and unable to return—and that the Government making an exception for him and his bad behaviour was very likely out of the question due to political fallout. Frankly, it beggars belief why he has acted the way he has.

For the record I couldn't give damn if Australia/the Australian Open was excluded from future world tournaments. My interest in tennis is minimal, thus I've based these comments on what has actually happened, not how I feel about Djokovic per se.

It seems to me that all the noise and brouhaha over this matter would be helped if Djokovic and other tennis fans would take a moment to be objective and not lose sight of the fact that millions of people have already died of COVID and despite the Australian Government's many fuckups, that there is real reason for why these COVID rules are in place. Must I actually say it: they're in place to save lives!

Djokovic ought to have known this and complied accordingly.

Besides, it's not as if you ask scientists their response would always be "well our science won't say very much until a year from now, so of course we recommend the status quo until we know more!"

Scientific consensus and consensus among scientists can be two different things (i.e., scientists may well agree or even recommend politicians and authorities to do X, well in advance of science being clear).

I don't know if you can compare smoking to covid, smoking related diseases take years and more likely decades to be deadly.

But in saying that, one way to look at this is via economics. When you are born, you have a potential life expectancy and a potential to earn society money (taxes). Smokers quite often die younger overall and not reaching their value to society, however this is general with many other diseases. Obviously reducing preventable forms of deaths such as those from smoking are to the benefit of society. Whenever you hear that smoking costs the "country" $X billions a year, that is not only the direct costs but also the indirect costs.

I believe in Australia the direct healthcare costs of treating smoking related illness was pegged at some number around 110 million a year, which is substantially different to the promoted cost of billions.

The difference with Covid is that it is an anomaly, perfectly healthy individuals have an increase chance of dying, as well as those who do have other health factors. This number maybe small but it has a large impact on the economy on society in general. Not only is a persons economic value reduced by the direct costs to society are increased.

An example of this, might be, you build a hospital knowing that X amount of smokers will die a year as well as other illnesses. You can calculate this, and work out what type of hospital you need to build. But what you cannot do very easily is calculate an additional 5 million people a year dying over an immediate time. It also takes considerable time to build hospitals, and years to train doctors, as such it is difficult to ramp up quickly to deal with anomalies. Then you must also consider the amount of productivity which is lost when a person is sick, this is also a factor which is calculated in regards to society, and then the publics spending, fear etc.

You can also look at the cost increases in the supply chain, which will affect the economy for years to come. Smokers for example are unlikely to influence the price of wood, but covid has.

So while we should take a pro-active stance against smoking (and when I was smoking I used to say the same), the pandemic is a real-time disaster which cannot be dealt with over 20 years like smoking. People will continue to die from smoking for decades even if you banned it today, but people will die today and potentially from related issues for decades from covid. The effects of covid are immediate, substantial and impactful to society not only right now but likely for some time.