Once a near COVID-free utopia, Australia sees omicron surge

SYDNEY (AP) — Like millions of others in the most locked-down place on the planet, Melbourne resident Rav Thomas dutifully spent 262 days confined to his home as the COVID-19 pandemic raged. He got vaccinated. And the single father of two found ways to pay the bills as Melbourne’s lockdowns — the longest imposed by any city in the world — battered his entertainment and events company.

Then in October, the city’s restrictions began to lift, along with Thomas’ spirits. His company once again began booking events as Melbourne’s nightclubs and bars reopened.

And then, omicron arrived.

The coronavirus variant has swept across Australia despite its high vaccination rate and strict border policies that kept the country largely sealed off from the world for almost two years. Those measures, which turned Australia into a virtually COVID-19-free utopia early in the pandemic, have garnered fresh scrutiny as the government has battled to deport unvaccinated tennis star Novak Djokovic ahead of the Australian Open. And they have prompted questions from frustrated and fatigued Australians about why their country — which seemingly did everything to stop the spread of of the virus — now finds itself infested with it.

“Tell your population, ‘Stay in your houses, you can’t go past your letterbox after 8 p.m. for days and months on end.’ And then you’re told, ‘OK, we’ve put in the hard yards,’” says Thomas, whose company, Anthem Entertainment, is now facing its 23rd consecutive month of financial loss as bookings once again dry up. “But then here we go again. Again. Again!”

Officially, there are now more than 600,000 active cases across Australia’s population of 26 million, though experts believe the actual number is far higher. The surge, health experts say, is partly due to the...