[New] Another worrying aspect relates to vaccines.

China has relied on domestically produced variations thus far, which have been categorised as universally redundant and lambasted as ineffective; Xi insisted on administering the likes of Sinovac and Sinopharm to millions of Chinese citizens, eschewing the offer of more reliable and effective options from the West such as Astra Zeneca, Pfizer and Moderna. Basically it means that the legions of Chinese eager to board a plane for pastures new have little or no effective protection vaccine wise. Whereas this will be irrelevant to anti-vaxxers, it rightfully causes concern for those who acknowledge that effective vaccines have helped combat the spread of the virus and alleviate the strain on hospitals and public health systems.

decision to attack Ukraine in February, with far-reaching sanctions imposed. Whatever your personal stance on the war, the bottom line is the country’s citizens have been penalised for one man and his regime’s policies. However, in the cold light of day, the occurrences in Ukraine do not pose a direct health threat to citizens in, say, London or Los Angeles, Melbourne or Buenos Aires - the sanctions are a politically driven response to humanitarian abuse.

Will COVID-19 wreak havoc again?

With this in mind, surely the global community should be acting more robustly and responsibly to safeguard people’s health by adopting similar restrictions? What occurred over the past three years wasn’t a warning, it was absolutely real and any sequel threatens to be even scarier. Of course, at this stage all predictions are merely conjecture and it will be interesting to say the least to watch how this development impacts the world. Australia will certainly adopt a robust approach which ensures the health and safety of its citizens and economy are protected but if things get out of hand then we may be entering uncharted waters once again. Ultimately, we can only hope that the nightmare scenario doesn’t unfold, that unchecked variants do not mutate to wreak havoc and that the unprecedented disruption previously experienced is never witnessed again.