Thread by @SMpwrgr

🧵 open letter to @AlboMP and @DanielAndrewsMP

Cc: @Mon4Kooyong @michrajah @VictorianCHO

Dear Anthony & Dan

I am angry. Incandescent with rage.

I will try to remain civil and calm so I can explain why, but I feel shaky with fury right now

Why?

I am friends with some of the most precautious, at risk people in Australia

They don’t have luxury of pretending the pandemic is over as it’s an existential threat to them & their families

They’ve sacrificed much over the last nearly 3 years to protect their health & families

By learning everything they can about Covid transmission

By investing hard earned $ (none are rich) into every protection they can access - from hepa air filters to n95/p2 masks to co2 monitors to nasal sprays & CPC mouthwash

By giving up on things they love to do b/c unsafe

They’ve managed to survive mostly unscathed through wave upon wave, with fewer public protections, less data to base choices on, in public air that gets less and less safe

They advocate tirelessly for better protections, raise money to donate n95s for those who can’t afford

They are passionate about trying to protect everyone, educate & inform all about the long term dangers of covid, help those most affected and most at risk to raise their voices

They are mostly sheltering from the world, although most also have to work & have kids in school

They are forced to access unsafe healthcare. They have to go to hospital where HCW’s don’t mask & mock their attempts to protect themselves as “anxiety”

Going out for dinner, shopping, travel all completely out of reach

This has been going on for some time, why am I angry now?

Because despite educating themselves, equipping themselves, despite doing selfless advocacy for all, despite taking every personally responsible protection possible

They are being infected in this wave, one after another, adults, children, whole families

It is devastating 😞

This includes children under 5 who’ve been sheltered for so long while fruitlessly waiting for you to allow them to be protected with vaccination

Now they suffer with none of the vaccine protection enjoyed by young children around the world

Do you wonder why I’m angry?

Parents who’re immunocompromised or have serious health issues & now suffering ongoing impacts of Covid worry whether they’ll survive to see their children grow up

Adult children watch ageing parents succumb knowing it will rob them of precious time

Do you wonder why I’m angry?

This is forced mass infection

Leading to forced mass chronic disability and death

There is no choice - if these friends can no longer protect themselves, if they cannot avoid Covid despite every best effort, no one can

Congratulations

You have removed every single protection that enabled us to keep ourselves safe this long

Whatever your end goal is in forcing infection on the entire population is in sight

I fear you are destroying our future with catastrophic, callous myopia

I fear this will be your legacy

I fear for my friends

I fear the ravages of Long Covid

I fear the exacerbation of serious underlying conditions

I fear for the future of innocent, vulnerable children

I’m so unspeakably angry you have inflicted this on us

I don’t have words to express depths of my sense of betrayal

You pretend this wave is nothing by removing all real data but it’s nothing short of catastrophic

You ignore family members who are dying or chronically disabled

You parade around in an endless stream of photo opportunities & selfies while we try not to DIE

You care about votes & what’s popular & what corporate donors demand while we care about chronic life changing health problems that were UNNECESSARY

You ignore our #VigilAgainstCOVID

It’s ironic that Dan said that leadership isn’t doing what’s popular, it’s doing what’s right

It’s true & it used to be what he & Labor stood for

It’s ironic that Albo said “Labor cares” & “no one left behind”

It’s no longer true

You are a bitter disappointment

You are the opposite of leaders

You are hypocrites who say one thing, but act the opposite

You are true politicians

I want to list everything you should do, every measure you should reinstate, but what’s the point?

Our only hope is the Long Covid inquiry & the doctors on the Committee

Listen to them, act on every single recommendation they make

Australians depend on you

Our future depends on you

Please stop disabling and killing us all

Yours sincerely
Sue J