So on 3 October we allowed 39,000 people to go into a stadium to watch grown men throw a ball and tackle each other.
This was, of course, yet another straw on the poor old hypocritical camel’s back as it strains to keep itself moving from A to B.
It solidifies in our minds that our glorious leaders (may their hair never fall out) either:
- don’t actually believe COVID is dangerous;
- don’t care whether their constituents die; or
- are more stupid than we thought.
None of these is a particularly attractive situation.
There are a few staggering elements here.
First, that our chief medical officer in Queensland managed to keep a straight face while declaring that holding the event should probably be fine from a health perspective. This in itself deserves an award nomination of some kind.
What’s that you say? 39,000 people into a stadium is fine? But I can’t invite all my relatives to my wedding, let alone any friends – that’s not fine. Nor if I die from the sheer stupidity of the governments around the world will that many people be able to attend my funeral to laugh at my music selections. If I go to the office (lol) then I have to wear a mask, unless I seal myself in the room where I am unable to hear the news and feel compelled to write articles like this one.
But in NRL we trust, and we have absolute confidence that the sensible and law-abiding citizens will definitely use all necessary measures to protect themselves and others from the virus of doom*
*bearing in mind that COVID can only get you when you’re standing up, so you don’t need to wear a mask if you’re sitting down. And masks definitely work anyway.
But really, we’re confident that even though we can’t go to a hairdresser without wearing a mask nowadays, the enormous pile of complete strangers who drink beer a lot will definitely keep the social distancing rules at a rugby match, right?
Now for the last 18 months or more we’ve had a fascinating piece of government information pushed down our thoats, ears and eyes – that COVID is a death dealing crazy maniac of a virus that will definitely destroy life as we know it.
This has been used to justify insanely over-the-top reactions, rules, regulations and orders requiring us not to visit our elderly relatives, see each other, embrace one another at all, turn up to work, take our kids to school (ok – not me, but other people), and more recently it’s been seen as a justification to force millions of people into the position of having to inject a drug repeatedly into their bodies or lose their jobs.
And yet – this.
Let’s be honest – this was a national sport-induced sedative. Because Australia is… Australia – cancelling the NRL grand final would have tipped some sports-loving Aussies over the edge.
It’s the slightly more gentile equivalent of chucking a guilotine at the city gates – designed to pacify the people, minimise dissention, and ensure compliance.
There is no way of reconciling this with the rhetoric of the last 18 months.
Which can really only lead to this conclusion – the trumped up government fascade of being actually concerned for our wellbeing is a colossal lie.
Or, if you prefer another angle, perhaps COVID isn’t the doomsday device that the powers-that-be have been declaring it as all this time.
