Elizabeth Rogliani 
On Monday, approximately three hundred Australian soldiers began patrolling the city of Sydney, home to six million people, which is under strict lockdown orders until August 28th. The military is essentially now working with police to make sure everyone is complying with the strict lockdown, and that includes knocking on residents’ doors to check everything is in order.
NPR, reported that “the military’s help is needed to enforce the restrictions because a small minority of people thought ‘the rules didn’t apply to them,’ New South Wales Police Minister David Elliott told Australia’s Channel Nine.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has come in for heavy criticism in recent weeks over the slow pace of vaccinations in Australia, where about 14% have been fully dosed — one of the poorest records among any member country of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development,” the report continued.
A resident of Bankstown told The Guardian that the deployment was a continuation of the heavy-handed approach they have already been seeing in the region.
“Their deployment is such a statement about the nature of the problem, and the problem is us, the people who live in western Sydney. They’re saying the problem isn’t the vaccine rollout or their failure to support people, the problem is our compliance.”
One resident described the troop rollout as an invasion, and that he thinks it will cause more people to be skeptical of the vaccination because of it.
“I can’t think of anything that will lend more credence to conspiracy theories than this,” the concerned resident added. “I can’t think of anything – they’ve been talking about martial law for so long, and now it’s confirmed.”
Hoping to quell public anger over the lockdowns and discourage vaccine resistance, Morrison said Friday that vaccinated Australians would be able to avoid some lockdowns once the rate of inoculation in the country hit 70%. He said once that rate hits 80%, broad lockdowns in major cities would no longer be necessary.