The plain truth is that the spread of Covid-19 is now out of control in New South Wales and its incidence is rising exponentially. A great deal of illness and death will surely follow.

The Berejiklian version of lockdown or, perhaps more accurately, the neo-liberal version of lockdown, has manifestly failed.

Ironically, it is much more destructive of the economy she is striving to protect than the harsher but shorter versions used in Victoria and the other six Australian states and territories.

The Delta variant of the virus has been spread to other states by a combination of sheer stupidity on the part of a few individuals and, it must be said, a degree of bad luck.

If we are to avoid total disaster, we can only hope that the states and territories impacted by what Dan Andrews calls “NSW incursions” can suppress the spread of the virus for long enough so the vaccination program, so badly botched by the Morrison government, at last begins to have a significant impact.

As usual, the Morrison government is using 'weasel words' to try to mitigate its abject failure to prioritise indigenous Australians for vaccination.

This is yet another failure to be laid at the federal government’s door however shamelessly it insists otherwise.

Here in South Australia we are cowering under the very flimsy protection provided by the tyranny of distance from the epicentre of the NSW debacle in the probably forlorn hope of keeping the virus at bay.

Our state’s leaders are hoping for the best but fearing the worst and are furiously promoting vaccination as the one sure way to beat off potential catastrophe.

Very sensibly, South Australians are lining up in droves to get their jabs.

In my lifetime, which included many years at a senior level in public health, I have not seen a worse failure of health policy than this.

It has been perpetrated by a complacent and incompetent federal government, which has shown bad judgement at almost every critical point in the unfolding pandemic.

Hopefully, this government will reap the electoral rewards it so richly deserves.