Stupid covid-19 virus. There was a failure at a South Australian quarantine hotel, a person who was infected came home to Melbourne and proceeded to infect their family and everyone they came in contact with. By the 2nd day, there were so many infections that Melbourne started a mandatory face mask requirement and with the increasing infections a full lock down followed 2 days after that. Then all the state borders closed.
The five reasons we can leave our home are: shopping; authorized work or education; exercise; care giving, compassionate and medical reasons; and to get vaccinated. It was quarantine all over again but we could at least go outside and open a window.
The first week of lock down, we were only allowed a 5 mile radius in which we could exercise but the second week, we were allowed a 10 mile radius. We’ve been walking every day and notice:
- very few people on the trams
- fewer people walking on the streets
- more people walking in the parks
- more food delivery scooters
With everyone having to be home, the WiFi in our apartment became unusable. We complained enough to the apartment owner than he moved us to one of his other apartments on the same floor but closer to the router. We spent an hour hand-carrying our things down the hall and putting everything away in its new spot. Annoying.
Sadly, our week-long Sydney trip was cancelled. Because borders are closed and Western AU won’t let anyone in for 14 days after there are no new cases, we had to cancel our epic 3-week trip. I’m very disappointed but there is literally nothing we can do about it but cancel all of our reservations. Many reservations could only be postponed so we’re hoping to return next year to do the WA trip.
We managed to get our first Astra-Zeneca vaccine the day before lock down so we spent the first 2 days recovering from that. I’m working on a creative project so that helps kill time. I know life can be much worse so I’m going for the glass-half-full approach.
