The reason Novak Djokovic’s visa was rejected and he has been asked to leave Australia appears to boil down to one fact.
The current rules for foreign nationals entering Australia say they have to be vaccinated for COVID-19, or they have to have a valid medical exemption.
The Australian Border Force does not necessarily accept that previously contracting COVID-19 – even in the past six months – qualifies as a valid exemption to not be vaccinated.
World men’s No.1 Novak Djokovic’s visa has been rejected.Credit:AP
While two medical panels that reviewed Djokovic’s application – one created by Tennis Australia and the other by the Victorian Health Department – may have come to the opposite conclusion, federal authorities have not come to a firm view on this point.
Advice from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, dated December 14, 2021, states that “evidence suggests that past infection reduces the risk of reinfection for at least six months (and therefore may be regarded as a temporary exemption for vaccination for a maximum of six months)“. But it then says that two doses of a vaccine “is still required in order to be considered fully vaccinated” and past infection is “not a contraindication to vaccination”.
Quite apart from whether there is a valid health reason for not getting vaccinated, Djokovic’s reasoning for not being vaccinated doesn’t appear to stack up on practical grounds.
Djokovic has previously expressed an anti-vaccination stance, so could Australian authorities really believe that the sole reason for him not being vaccinated is that he contracted COVID recently?
Assume for a minute that you can’t get vaccinated within six months of contracting COVID-19. Djokovic first contracted the virus in June 2020, and there is now a strong suggestion he tested positive again at some point in the past six months. That still leaves, at the very least, the entire first six months of 2021 in which he had ample opportunity to be vaccinated.
On any logical assessment, there doesn’t appear to be a causal relationship between him recently having COVID and not being vaccinated.
Why Novak Djokovic’s visa was rejected
Source: Philippines Alive
