A hard lesson for Novak Djokovic: patience with vaccine skeptics is wearing thin | Gaby hinsliff

In fairness to Djokovic, this charade may not be entirely his fault. Someone somewhere, be it at their camp or in Australian tennis, may have screwed up by allowing a situation to arise where the tournament’s biggest box office draw was apparently given a free pass to compete in the country, but not to get there. However, few tears will be shed for the man now inevitably known as “Novaxx” Djokovic.

Around the world, patience with those who have not been intentionally vaccinated is wearing thin in the face of another viral wave. Just over a month ago, I wrote about how the mood could harden when intensive care beds were filled with patients who realized too late that they should have received the jab, while restrictions were re-imposed on people. that they had done what was asked of them. Now that scenario is unfolding, with France’s President Macron playing gallery, promising to do whatever he can to “piss off” those who are not tied down, while angry callers on British radio phones demand that they anti-vaccines are stripped of their right to NHS Treatment if they get sick.

In the rest of sport, the Premier League, which faces a stubborn minority of unvaccinated elite footballers and fears match cancellation, has talked about making those who are not tied travel separately to matches or eat their meals. away from other players. It’s an uncomfortably divisive idea, stopping just short of making them wear a bell and yell, “Filthy! Filthy! “But what if the alternative is for double jab players to become increasingly resentful of having to sit outside of matches because they are isolated, after contact with infected teammates? Balancing the human right The incontrovertible refusal of a vaccine with the right of others not to be held hostage by that decision is the greatest challenge of this stage of the pandemic, and that is what makes Djokovic’s case resonate far beyond tennis.

There is an undeniably ugly undercurrent to part of this hostility towards the unvaccinated, who are disproportionately likely to be poor, marginalized and ethnic minority background. Punishing people who often have deep-seated reasons for not trusting the authorities for not receiving their blows not only runs the risk of accumulating discrimination based on discrimination, but represents a profound failure to understand why they did not want to comply in the first place, which makes it impossible to convince them to change their mind.

But there is nothing obviously outcast about a millionaire athlete who arrogantly demands the right to fly to a country suffering record rates of infection in hopes of lifting another lucrative trophy. Australians have endured such draconian restrictions that thousands of them who were stranded abroad at the start of the pandemic were not even allowed to return to their own country. Djokovic has less in common with a dying, minimum-wage British care worker, who faces dismissal if he doesn’t take the hit, than with an often-more-middle-class form of anti-vaccines that goes unnoticed. He is a believer in “natural” healing that once suggested that polluted water could be cleaned with the power of positive thinking, insisting that science had shown “that water molecules react to our emotions.” You have the right to have any outlandish beliefs you want, of course, but you do not have the God-given right to escape the professional consequences of them, and even less do you have the right to impose consequences on others. The influence he wields as an international athlete, meanwhile, makes it even more important that he be seen to be following the rules.

“One rule for them, one for the rest of us” remains the most toxic indictment of the pandemic, whether leveled at Downing Street aides who drink Christmas wine and cheese at a time when ordinary mortals won’t even know it. allowed them to see their friends. their own parents, or against the big names in Hollywood entry granted to Australia for film and television work when most people were barely allowed out of their homes.

Takes advantage of a feeling of outrage for elites getting their way on things the little one can’t say is never far from the surface of politics, visibly inflamed by a pandemic in which too many powerful people have been caught skirting the rules. so painfully obeyed. By others. Not surprisingly, Scott Morrison, the Australian Prime Minister criticized for his own handling of the pandemic, seized the opportunity to declare that “rules are rules” and they apply to everyone. Unlike tennis, fighting a pandemic is a team effort. If he doesn’t want to be booed on the next court he actually plays, Djokovic would do well to remember it.