A great deal of effort went into ‘talking up the fear’ yesterday when a cruise ship with 800 positive Covid cases loomed near Circular Quay.

The Majestic Princess is no Ruby Princess and it’s 2022, not 2020. There are probably more Covid cases onshore at Circular Quay than on the approaching ship.

It’s also a million degrees in Sydney and we all know that Covid is like a vampire – it hates the sunlight and only attacks those heathens who insist on standing at the pub (instead of sitting safely at the nearest sticky table).

Departing from previously Covid-Zero-obsessed New Zealand, the Majestic Princess arrived in Sydney on Saturday morning to a media storm. Desperate for a headline that doesn’t involve Albanese’s jet-setting carbon-wasting lifestyle, publications and broadcasters covered the story with a bit of drama.

It went about as well as Annastacia Palaszczuk’s ‘let them wear masks!’ sermon earlier in the week.

The truth is, the public are quite happy to live with Covid, even if our Chief Health Officers are not.

One wonders what Covid would have looked like if the medical bureaucracy had been kept in their box. Would it have fizzled out like every previous Asian flu scare? Would we have noticed Covid? Would our economy be in tatters? Would the government be setting aside millions for vaccine injury payouts? Would there even by a global financial crisis?

There were around 4,600 passengers and crew on the Majestic Princess. Of the 800 Covid cases, most had no symptoms and those that did exhibited what could best be described as the sniffles. The two passengers who were transferred to hospital via ambulance were not due to Covid, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Sydney currently has no isolation orders for Covid – for obvious reasons. It’s everywhere. The non-binding health advice is that if you feel unwell, stay home, which is exactly what we practice for the flu. That said, I’ve come across plenty of ‘undead’ plague carriers on Sydney’s public transport system.

One passenger spoke to the ABC:

‘It was scary because we heard about it, but of course we tested negative, and the Majestic Princess were really good with the protocols. [We] wore masks for these last seven days and we were very careful when we went ashore.’

…wore masks? On a cruise ship? In mid-November?

Each to their own, I guess.

The only reason anyone knew about the outbreak was due to the mass testing of guests. Marguerite Fitzgerald, President of Carnival Australia, said:

‘Reflective of the increase in community transmissions, we too have seen more guests test positive for Covid on the current voyage of Majestic Princess. This is a result of mass testing of our 3,300 guests.’

There are around 54,000 active cases in Australia – that they know of. Given that barely anyone is testing and the vast majority of cases (regardless of vaccination status) are asymptomatic, how would they know?

The point is, there’s a lot of Covid around and the Australian population is unconcerned. Aside from a small collection of left-leaning, quadruple-vaxxed accounts on social media desperate to see their peers masked, there is no appetite for the return of restrictions.

If Premiers want to ruin Christmas, as several Labor states have tried to do, they’re going to have a real fight on their hands.

I had to laugh when I read: ‘Australian authorities have been working to assure the public that this ship outbreak is under control.’

Hardly. It’s been a task to get the Australian people to read the headline let alone care. Had there been any genuine local panic, those passengers would not have been allowed to disembark. They’d have been marched to one of those empty quarantine centres or returned to a sheep paddock in New Zealand. (Are there still sheep, given Ardern’s war on four-legged farm animals?)

‘They have been isolating in their cabins, but it takes you back to 2020, Ruby Princess and this is the sister ship. The advice is to either go and get a booster and, if you do end up with Covid, get the anti-viral as quick as you can, if you are eligible… It can stop the virus in its tracks,’ said infectious disease expert Professor Robert Booy.

Remember when vaccination was meant to stop transmission and infection? The TGA would probably rather we didn’t.