LIVE | Tens of thousands of people demonstrate against Australia’s corona policy | Inland

Protesters are angry about lockdowns and vaccination obligations being introduced for certain groups. For example, the state of South Australia has recently decided that school staff must be fully vaccinated before the start of the next school year. They are given a few weeks to arrange their first vaccination.

Some Australians think such measures go too far. Protesters had brought signs to Sydney that read ‘my body, my choice’ and ‘my daughter is ill from vaccine side effects’, reports the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper. The police estimate that 10,000 people demonstrated in the metropolis, the organizers of the ‘freedom march’ assume 100,000 participants.

crowd of people

It is unclear how many people took to the streets in Melbourne, but images show that it is a huge crowd. The newspaper The Age assumes tens of thousands of participants. Where there were riots in the Dutch city of Rotterdam a day earlier during protests against corona measures, large-scale disturbances in the Australian cities seem to have not occurred.

People who do support the government’s approach held a counter-demonstration in Melbourne. About 2000 people participated. One participant told AFP news agency that government policies are designed to save lives. “This is a global pandemic. What else are we supposed to do?”

Australia, with a population of approximately 25 million, was largely closed to foreign travelers at the start of the pandemic to keep the virus at bay. The country has reported more than 1,900 deaths from the virus, far fewer than smaller Western European countries like the Netherlands and Belgium.

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