It's the end of 2021, it's been a shiny new year full of hope and promise for three and a half hours, but right now I'm trying to decide exactly how betrayed by my own country I should feel.
2021 has been a terrible year in Australia, more of the year has been spent in hard lockdown than not.
My home earned the regrettable distinction of being the most locked down city on Earth, with a "short, sharp" "seven day circuit-breaker" lockdown dragging out to three long months.
Three months of not being allowed to leave your home, except for the four accepted reasons, under threat of police action.
(Not to mention any of the other lockdowns we suffered through this year.)
This has all been in aid of keeping case numbers to the lowest possible number (zero was the achievable ideal for the longest time) and to "flatten the curve."
Now, throughout the spend, spend, spend holiday season, the narrative has shifted. Now we're told we shouldn't pay any attention to the thousands of new infections being diagnosed daily (5,919 new cases recorded in my state today.) We're told "Australia can live with this virus" by Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
In New South Wales health minister Brad Hazzard was quoted five days ago “We would expect that pretty well everybody in NSW at some point will get Omicron."
Thank goodness I don't live in NSW, but the point still remains at some point in the very recent past Australia, formerly the shining beacon in Covid management, just rolled over and f-ing gave up.
I haven't been spending my lockdown days at home, attending Zoom meetings and binging on Netflix, I've been out there, boots on the ground every day as an essential services worker fighting to maintain some kind of normality for people.
I try not to think about it in the moment, but I know I take my life in my hands every day when I'm out there amongst people who refuse to keep a reasonable distance and think wearing a mask under your chin is appropriate protection, people who are over it all and think that if you're fed up the rules don't apply.
It feels like I, and everybody in my position, have spent the last two years fighting in a war against an invisible enemy. And now, after twenty two consecutive months of fighting Charlie up in the trees, I've come home to find Charlie has bought out my industry, Charlie is my new supervisor and I should learn to adapt to how Charlie does things because that's just the world we live in now.
Australia will just have to live with Charlie.
Part of me still wants to believe the worst of it is behind us, that the new year will bring new hope. But, a more realistic part of me observes how out of control the situation has become over this summer and that when the weather cools down again things are just going to be unmanagable.
Living with this virus, accepting that we are all destined to get sick regardless of whether you're fully vaccinated, on your first, second or eighteenth booster, putting wealth ahead of health feels like we're back on the path to yet another lockdown. And I'm still waiting for the last one to have been worth the pain it caused.
~L~
