'Paradise': Australian states free of COVID resist opening

Anyone could be forgiven for forgetting a pandemic ever happened on Australia’s west coast

PERTH, Australia -- It can seem like Australia’s west coast has almost entirely avoided COVID-19. A mask-free nightlife is thriving and huge crowds are turning out for sporting events, including 53,000 rugby fans who crammed into a Perth stadium to watch New Zealand’s All Blacks defeat Australia’s Wallabies on a recent sunny Sunday. “We are in paradise,” said one of those fans, Andrea Williams, who is all for the region continuing to defy the federal government and maintain strict border restrictions that keep it separated from the pandemic raging in large parts of the rest of Australia. While the cities of Sydney and Melbourne in the east have been in strict lockdown with a surge of virus cases, the Western Australia state capital of Perth has largely remained open for business — behind its shut borders.