“Outrageous kick in the teeth to all Australians who’ve endured such draconian restrictions for so long. Rewarding an anti-vaxx loon like this sends a terrible message.”
The world number one tennis player Novak Djokovic has sparked fury, outrage etc among residents of the most locked down city in the world after he was given a vaccine exemption to compete at this month’s Australian Open in Melbourne.
Brit polemicist Piers Morgan tweeted, “Outrageous kick in the teeth to all Australians who’ve endured such draconian restrictions for so long. Rewarding an anti-vaxx loon like this sends a terrible message.”
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Australian football star Corey McKernan tweeted, “People with loved ones who are dying / some needing urgent treatment cannot get into their own states. You tell people they can’t go to Coles or a cafe without being vaxxed but if you’re world number 1 you get a pass? F***ing disgrace.”
The good people of that once-bustling city lived, barely, through six lockdowns totalling 262 days after COVID kicked off worldwide in March 2020.
It wasn’t a breezy sorta deal either, local cops ate up the chance to kick hell out of anyone who didn’t affix their paper mask correctly.
REPORT: Angry cop slams a man to the ground. Could have killed him. – Flinders Street Railway Station. Australia. pic.twitter.com/I1nc1O2nJg
— New Granada (@NewGranada1979) September 22, 2021
Anyway, exemptions can be given for reasons such as anaphylactic response to the COVID vaccine, a poor response to vaccination or having had Covid in the last six months.
Serbian Djokovic told fellow Serbian athletes on a Facebook chat a year ago, “Personally I am opposed to vaccination and I wouldn’t want to be forced by someone to take a vaccine in order to be able to travel…”
Earlier this year, Kelly Slater was slammed by the Australian press when he launched multiple fronts in the online vaccine war and claimed friends had “literally” been killed by vaccines, although this would later be amended to “horrible reactions”.
Slater’s vax hesitancy, scepticism, whatever it is, previously meant he’d be shut out from competing on this year’s Australian leg of the tour, which encompasses Bells Beach and Margaret River.
Only two months ago, The Guardian opined that the country’s ultra-strict vaccination requirements would not be loosened even for superstar tennis players like Novak Djokovic. Not even for the world’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater.
Slater’s predicament underscores a looming dilemma for international sporting competitions. While Australia’s long-closed borders are now slowly reopening, the blanket ban on foreign arrivals is being replaced by vaccination requirements that are stringent by international standards. In sports notable for their globe-trotting – including tennis, golf, road cycling, Formula One, surfing and cricket – Australia’s entry requirements make being unvaccinated a significant competitive liability. Across a season of fine margins, sitting out one of the four Grand Slams, a Grand Prix or two WSL legs is unthinkable. Or is it?
The Djokovic decision opens the door to the greatest of all time to give Australians one more taste of his divine act, flying out on sheer bazaaz, his fans twitching like laboratory rabbits with electrodes planted in the brain.
Thanks LGR
Lucky your kids are , .to be so loved ….So many miss out .
We spent 6 months in Australia at the beginning of 2020 and needed a reliable cheap little car , so when taking a test drive in a Honda Jazz , my wife hit play on the CD player and a best of 80s CD started to play , so we bought the car , played the CD for 6 months , and the kids still miss it …. not car but the CD . .
My Dad was a Bank Manager , story teller , and every few years he would change branches and have a new batch of fresh underlings who were obliged to laugh at his jokes …..he then would return home and ply us with the same jokes we had heard since birth .
Be careful though I believe it is genetically transmitted on ,because my son blurted out this Dad Joke this morning …..
What did the waffle maker say to the Baseball Game ?
Batter Up …..absolutely woeful but I had tears streaming down my face imaging his grandfather telling the same shitty joke .
My favorite I heard was from a kid from Cornwall
Who asked me why did the fish cross the sea ?
To get to the other tide . boom boom .
Sometimes pierce Morgan has had opinions i just can’t agree with and that’s fine but his remark about djoko not wanting to get vaxed and come to aussie is flippen spot on !!!!!!
Are the djokovic family not shameless or what …trying to tell the world how their son is so badly treated give me a break ….sorry djoko and family you might win at tennis but you are losing on the world stage!!!
Bull about powell don’t start bs rumors
Aussies did the right thing djokovic has no right to enter ..he has already admitted he is against vacs …so stay out …you are not above the law ..sorry djoko you get no special treatment ..Australians had to tow the line to help their country why do you think you can just March in
Same goes for Kelly slater …no special treatment to surf in aussie
Negative efficacy is a thing – hard to find – but peer reviewed papers are floating around.
Aw come on, this ain’t that much different than Gavin Newsom taking the state of CA back into full-time mask mandate mode – and then exempting all of San Francisco for undefined reasons. Oh and giving the green-light to hosting the Super Bowl in Los Angeles, no masks required, in a couple weeks.
As humans we must acknowledge that some (actually, all) politicians and political bodies are doing what they want, not what their constituents and/or science is out there.
Once you realize that, all is good.
Omicron is like a crappy vaccine with unpredictable side effects that can put you in the hospital or kill you. You have no choice about getting it because it gives no fuks about what you say. Amazing that there are so many fools who would rather get that than a real vaccine that could keep them alive.
Idiot
You to LGR …We can’t take those stories with us , so might as well annoy the shit out of the kids with em , while we can .
Happy New Year LGR
My hair has fallen out , my skin not so tight , my fitness level is degrading ever so slightly and I forget names ……reaction to vaccine ? HELL NO ….
Sadly this due to the aging process , the human condition , for which , at least for now , there is no cure or vaccine .
Just age gracefully, it’s the best anybody can do and perfectly fine!
That takedown way out smashed SmackDown.
Syria
Novax djockavic
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Hahahahahahaha!!
We have come along way down the path from
Half Fish , Total Dish ……to this ?
Novak will be most hated man in Oz for open – the booing will fire him up good odds to win the thing for sure!!
This is great news for Taj Burrow’s WA WILDCARD blind exemption test which will be supervised by the WSL , and they will not know the medical exemption is for Taj even though he is the only athlete over 40 ( besides smelly ) and his DNA plays jazz when examined …..
Seriously, the dude from stab should have slapped you harder.
This bloke is dead at snapper and your talking up a kangaroo from doing ski runs in Italy?
Put your helmet back on and bake another cake
https://www.mygc.com.au/gra…
What cloud am I shaking my fist at? Fucken youngens and their fucken young shit.
There’s plenty to go round.
Even a dark corner for you