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Australia’s ‘brutal’ Covid-19 lockdowns hit vulnerable groups harder, worsened existing inequalities: report
- The Fault Lines report, which criticised insufficient transparency around decision making, found the elderly and low-income workers ‘bore the brunt of the pandemic’
- Australia enacted some of the world’s strictest measures during the health crisis, including six lockdowns in Melbourne
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Australia’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic disproportionately affected marginalised and disadvantaged groups, according to an independent review, which found “brutal” lockdowns exacerbated existing inequalities in the country.
The Fault Lines report, released in Sydney on Thursday and partly funded by mining billionaire Andrew Forrest’s philanthropic foundation, found vulnerable groups such as the elderly and low-income workers “bore the brunt of the pandemic.”
Australia enacted some of the world’s strictest measures during the pandemic, including closing its international and domestic borders.
Melbourne endured six lockdowns, while last year’s outbreak of the Delta variant sent Sydney into a three-month lockdown, with some of the harshest restrictions targeting the city’s poorer suburbs. The country has now lifted almost all pandemic-era measures.
“Lockdowns, overall, created a universal feeling that the pandemic was being policed rather than managed,” the report said.
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