A couple passages that I thought were striking:
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Australia’s 670,000 Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders have long suffered from poor health and still suffer from preventable diseases like trachoma that are found nowhere else in the developed world.
One-third die by the age of 45, and the average life expectancy for Indigenous people is more than 10 years less than non-Indigenous Australians. The rate of rheumatic heart disease among Australia’s “First Nation” peoples is the highest in the world – 75 times higher than the rate of non-Indigenous Australians. Gastroenteritis, kidney disease, diabetes, influenza – the list of chronic illnesses goes on and on and explains why Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders were identified as “a clearly defined vulnerable community” at the start of Australia’s vaccine rollout in February.
on housing:
“The reality of living in remote rural communities is that there is still a housing crisis in 2021, that abject poverty is the norm and you are sharing a home with your aunties and uncles, nieces and nephews, and there are people sleeping rough on your couch,” the community elder in Wilcannia explained.