Monday, January 10, 2022
Positive, but among people
Djokovic obviously ignored corona isolation
Novak Djokovic travels to Melbourne with a special permit from the Australian Open. According to him, he will test positive in mid-December and has now recovered. However, it is also clear that the tennis star did not appear to be in isolation. On the contrary.
The legal squabble over Novak Djokovic’s stay in Australia continues. After Judge Anthony Kelly overturned the cancellation of his visa, Immigration Secretary Alex Hawke is now examining whether he can use his “personal authority to cancel”. This was announced by the Australian government’s lawyer, Christopher Tan. According to reports, his decision must be made within four hours of the first court decision, i.e. by noon German time. However, Djokovic could object again.
Kelly had emphasized that Djokovic had done everything to be allowed to enter. He said Djokovic had provided evidence of a medical exemption from a “professor and a highly qualified doctor”. He was also confirmed by a panel of experts independent of the Victorian government. Kelly concluded his comment by asking, “What more could this man have done?”
Infection actually too late
However, there are inconsistencies in Djokovic’s evidence. He was Tested positive for the coronavirus for the second time on December 16, 2021 his lawyers argued. He was then already on December 22nd tested negative been. As a result, he received an exemption from the Australian Tennis Association on December 30th due to his infection. This applies to unvaccinated but recently recovered people whose illness was at least 14 days ago and who have had no symptoms in the last 72 hours.
However, a paper from the tournament organizer is circulating on Twitter, informing about the applications for this exemption. As of December 6th it is pointed out there that such an application must not be requested later than December 10th. According to journalist Ben Rothenberg, who also writes for the “New York Times”, this deadline was communicated to the players. The question now is: How can a positive test from December 16 then still be valid for the issuing of the special permit? According to its own rules, the organizer of the Australian Open should no longer have allowed Djokovic.
Guest at various events
While these are only deadlines and issues on paper, there are other controversial issues regarding the timing of Djokovic’s infection. Because in the days after the positive test on December 16, the Serb did not go into isolation. On the same day, he performed at a public event that was streamed live. He was present at a panel discussion and presented a stamp in his honor.
One day later he was a guest at an award ceremony for young players in his Novak Tennis Center. Without a mask, he posed for photos with the children. The same goes for December 18th. The 34-year-old appeared at the “Champion of Champions 2021” gala of the French sports newspaper “L’Équipe”.
According to Rothenberg, the court record shows that the PCR test took place on December 16 and the positive result was established on the evening of the same day. It can be assumed that he was informed of this finding in a timely manner. Accordingly, he started socializing without a mask at least from December 17th, although he knew about his infection. He would have deliberately exposed others to the risk of infection.
Another question mark is behind the exemption granted by the organizers of the Australian Open. Professor Allen Cheng, the former chairman of the top Australian vaccination organization, said, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, that an exception for those who have recovered should not apply to travelers from overseas. Cheng justified this with the difficulty of checking medical documents from abroad. However, he is not sure whether this advice from his agency was ever published: “I am not sure whether it was communicated. I assumed that this was the case; we assumed that this was the rule, but where exactly it was published, I don’t know. ” After all, that wouldn’t have been Djokovic’s fault.