Coronavirus
Out of context: Reply #4796
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Re: Australia’s ban on citizens returning from India. It’s a bummer to see the news media stoke the flames of racism again. From what I’ve read, the govt of Australia is putting a temporary ban on people from India to avoid overloading their effective hotel quarantining system. This makes sense. Things have have become horrifying in India and understandably people who went there want to get the fuck out now. But if all those AUS citizens in India come in at the same time, there’s going to be a problem.
People want to jump to conclusions about it being race-related. They’ll point out that there were no bans on arrivals from UK and USA when those numbers were worse. This may be true, but I don’t recall my Australian friends in America hopping planes back to Australia en masse. (Also, Australians in America aren’t necessarily white, it’s immature and racist to presume “American” or “Australian” means white people.)
Anyway, the solution is to queue everyone into the hotel quarantine. But that’s pretty much what Australia is doing here. By setting a temporary ban, they can free up space over time so more people can come home. Overloading the quarantine won’t help. Now, you might argue that they should increase quarantine beds – and that’s fair – but don’t forget that the people who left Australia for India knew the risks in traveling there.
I feel terrible for the people in India, regardless if they’re Australian citizens or not. This isn’t an easy situation. But to brand a decision as racism based on utter nonsense isn’t doing anyone any good. It’s not helping.
Australia is extremely multicultural and, like all countries, has some racists. But have you ever been to India? Met any Indian expats? Racism among Indians, especially older generations, is absurdly common.
I mean, literally a huge part of the problem in India right now can be traced back to the fact that certain castes of people don’t care AT ALL if people of lower castes suffer and die. India is run by a monster racist, who was democratically elected by the people.
And, by the way, India isn’t a poor country without access to pharma. It’s one of massive disparity between rich and poor. India produces more Covid vaccine (by volume) than any other country. But they do not value each human life as equal.
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- I travelled a bit in India in past few years, different regions and provinces and was always looking to find the "rich" India or even middle class...never did.yuekit
- Which is to say, it's not hard to imagine how they got in this situation. As bad as COVID was in wealthy countries, it's got to be a nightmare in developingyuekit
- That’s because a) there’s a ton of people in India and b) the rich people don’t want you to see them.********
- country with little to no public health infrastructure.yuekit
- India ranks 3rd in number of billionaires, after USA and China********
- https://www.theguard…********
- Shutting out your own citizens is crazy. Threatening citizens with fines and jail to get back into your country.thumb_screws
- Use Christmas Island or naru for quarantine.thumb_screws
- I agree it is crazy, but they DO have quarantine procedure, just not enough space to handle everyone coming in at once.********
- I'm sure a lot of people would be willing to camp or stay in uncomfortable conditions for two weeks, if they had to********
- I think there are lots of creative solutions here, but you can't snap your fingers and make them happen. This is a two-week ban.********
- I'm just saying, it's not fair to automatically jump to conclusions of "hey that's racist!"********
- Thanks for coming to my TED talk