Published July 7, 2021 The New York Times has called out Australia – once the envy of the world when it came to tackling the coronavirus pandemic – for completely and utterly failing when it comes to getting people vaccinated. How the turntables. In its news podcast Carl Zimmer perfectly summed up how Australia suddenly went from being pretty much COVID-free to having the current spate of lockdowns we’ve seen around the nation. He attributed recent clusters to “Delta-driven surges” unfolding in largely-unvaccinated countries like Bangladesh, Malaysia, Russia and, well, Australia. The thing is, the pandemic had always been tough in those countries, as it had been pretty much everywhere. We were the exception… until now.