#AUSTRALIA LOCKDOWN ANIMAL SHELTER FULL#

Others took in a pet to stave off loneliness and later realised upkeep was not easy. Many pets were abandoned at the beginning of the pandemic due to fears of whether pets could pass on the virus.

50% of pet owners said they had relinquished a pet since the pandemic began, compared to 28% globally. “But during the pandemic, it went through the roof, as people craved companionship without giving enough thought to what would happen when they went back to work or resumed their old lifestyle.”Ĭovid-19 pandemic, where “six in 10 people” felt encouraged to bring home a pet, relinquishment levels are higher in the country. “Impulse pet adoptions were already quite common,” points out Kirti Bhardwaj, a member of Animal Adoption & Care, a collective of animal lovers and rescuers in Mumbai. The same animal shelters that had recorded high adoptions at the height of the pandemic, are faced with an influx of pet surrenders due to ‘buyers’ remorse’. But as the world moved on and the initial enthusiasm wore off, many of these new pet parents realised they weren’t dog or cat people after all. For many, the cat was their only companion and the dog-walk, their only trip outside. With people confined to their homes and often suffering emotional distress, many flocked to pet shops and shelters to find a furry friend that would make lockdown less lonely. Because, from where we are, learning to live with the virus, Boris Johnson-style, looks rather like “learning to die with it”.Alongside sourdough baking and virtual concerts, the other ‘quarantine trend’ that exploded was pandemic pet adoption. We also need an exit plan and a date to open our borders – but only once global vaccination rates “are sky-high”. Ardern has made mistakes – notoriously, our vaccine rollout is the slowest in the developed world. But New Zealand’s per-person Covid death rate is nearly 400 times lower than the UK’s, unemployment is 4% and our economy recovered more quickly than Britain’s. We Kiwis can be “sleepy little hobbits”, says Max Rashbrooke in The Guardian.

When the virus does inevitably strike the islands, “it will kill”. Yet only one in five New Zealanders has been vaccinated. She has already turned the country into a “mysterious socialist hermit kingdom” by shutting borders over the past 18 months. There the “pious and hugely irritating” PM, Jacinda Ardern, imposed the most severe lockdown possible when a single Covid case was found last week. It’s just as crazy in New Zealand, says Rod Liddle in The Sunday Times. Australia must decide how many people it’s willing to sacrifice to “the mortuary or the horrors of long Covid”. Were we to open up as the UK did in July and let the Delta variant rip, we’d have 37 daily deaths and nearly 12,000 cases. But instead of giving us “effusive rah-rah talk” about “adjusting our mindsets”, Morrison needs to level with us, says Shaun Carney in The Sydney Morning Herald. Thanks to the “vaccine strollout”, that figure currently stands at just 32%. We need “a way out”.Īustralia will only reach that exit when 70%-80% of the population has been double-vaccinated, PM Scott Morrison said this week.

As Clive James once said: “The problem with Australians is not that so many of them are descended from convicts, but that so many are descended from prison officers.” True, the lockdown has saved many lives – fewer than 50 people have died with Covid this year – but the Australian budget surplus is now nearly a $1 trillion debt. Strangely, these extraordinary restrictions remain popular, says Alexander Downer in The Spectator. Our government’s obsession with “zero Covid” is “destroying us”. A rural council dog shelter put down 15 dogs rather than routinely transfer them and risk “a potential health hazard”. People on the streets in New South Wales have been told not to be “too friendly” to avoid transmission.

#AUSTRALIA LOCKDOWN ANIMAL SHELTER FULL#

Sydney has been in full lockdown since June, triggered by a mere 82 cases. “Everything you’ve heard about Australia and coronavirus is true,” says Gideon Rozner in The Daily Telegraph.

Australia lockdown animal shelter