An obsession with “safetyism” has underpinned Australia’s response to COVID-19, which has seen state governments readily deploy public health restrictions to contain the virus at the expense of all else—a move that has garnered increasing global attention, according to one psychiatrist.
Tanveer Ahmed, an author and clinical psychiatrist, says Australia’s low COVID-19 infection and death rates by global standards has fostered an increasing belief in “safetyism”—a culture where individual safety takes primacy over other practical or moral concerns.
