Feb 21, 20224 min read

What happened to Novak Djokovic, and what does it say about global COVID policies?

Just days before the start of the Australian Open, the news was brimming with stories on Novak Djokovic’s COVID controversy: the current number 1 in men’s tennis was under fire for seemingly disobeying Australian sanitary regulations and was risking being kicked out of the country before the tournament even began. The news updates surrounding the matter soon became very opinionated and hard to follow, and so we’ve prepared a timeline of what actually happened, followed by a short analysis of what this scandal meant for the world.

Timeline of the 2021/22 Djokovic controversy

19 November: The Australian Open announces that all players must be vaccinated against the coronavirus

16 December: Djokovic takes a COVID test which comes back positive on December 17th, only 3 days after interacting with basketballers in Belgrade who tested positive

17 December: He attends an event for youth tennis players in Belgrade, without masks, even though he had COVID; he defends himself by saying that the PCR test came back after the event, and his antigen from before attending was negative

18 December: Even though he knows he has COVID, he attends a photoshoot and interview with the L’Equipe newspaper

4 January: He announces that he will be participating in the Australian Open in Melbourne with a medical exemption (all participants must be vaccinated or have such an exemption, which was requested by 26 of the players and staff but only granted to a handful), and the following day, he arrives in Australia

6 January: He is denied entry into the country after being detained for eight hours, and his visa is cancelled after the Australian Border Force says that “Mr Djokovic failed to provide appropriate evidence to meet the entry requirements to Australia”; his travel declaration had been filled in with wrong information about him not having travelled in the past 2 weeks, which raised eyebrows about the validity of all his other paperwork as well

10 January: Judge Anthony Kelly reinstates his visa because he was not given sufficient time to talk to his lawyers, after the player signs an affidavit confirming that he has not been vaccinated against COVID

14 January: His visa is cancelled once again after the Immigration Minister, Alex Hawke, uses his “personal power of cancellation”, stating that it would be a public safety danger to do otherwise and that his continued stay in Australia “may foster anti-vaccination sentiment”, and Australia’s Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, says that cancelling the visa protects the “sacrifices” made by the Australian people

International response

A large part of the international community was upset over Djokovic’s actions for trying to bypass Australia’s vaccination policy after revealing earlier in the pandemic that both he and his wife are fervently against the vaccine, and also for holding a press event after knowingly being tested positive for COVID; his attitude towards the virus and towards all of the effort that the world has put in so far to prevent its spread is very negligent and je m’en fiche-like (the literal translation from French is “I don’t care” but the original phrase is too fitting not to use), angering many. Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, told the BBC that, if Djokovic lied to the authorities to enter the country, “he's taking the sovereign capacity of another nation for a joke," and "You can't just wander around the world thinking that because you're really rich you're really above the laws of other nations".

The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, declared that Djokovic was supported by the whole of Serbia as a victim of “harassment”, even though Australia’s PM reinforced the fact that the visa cancellation was in no way related to "any particular position in relation to Serbia", and simply a matter of legal proceedings. If anything, this diplomatic quarrel shows just how dangerous the outcomes can be if individuals, especially those of high public status, do not follow the pandemic regulations put in place by a nation’s governments: not only would they be jeopardising the country’s safety, but they also put it at risk of a small, yet significant, political struggle that could easily be avoided. Whether or not we like it, stringent regulations, such as mandatory vaccination, have been put in place for our own safety, and the more we abide by them, the sooner we can hope for a COVID-free near future.

Concluding remarks

In the end, was Australia right to react in such a manner to Djokovic’s actions? Maybe, but we cannot know for sure. This event does, however, give us insight into the world’s general attitude towards COVID policies, and how far countries are willing to go if they are violated: the reaction was most definitely exacerbated by Djokovic’s fame and the potential for setting a bad example, but, either way, any breach of pandemic law should not be tolerated, as it invalidates all of the previous work done to contain the spread of the virus, and a law is only as effective as the country’s people make it. Ultimately, Djokovic broke the law and was punished for it by being denied the right to play for a 21st Grand Slam victory; you can call it what you will, but we’ll call it justice for now.