Melbourne is back in Stage 4 lockdown.

[groovergirl]

Howdy all. I'm in Melbourne, and it's just been announced that we're back in Stage 4 lockdown from midnight. It's because of some coronavirus cases in a quarantine hotel at the airport.

We've done this before, and everyone was saying "You've got this, Melbourne!" and telling us how awesome we were. But we've been so awesome for so long, and we're all so tired of this. I think most Australians are prepared to do masks and practical precautions for the long term, but these sudden hits to work, school and social life are hard to bear. I couldn't see my family in Sydney this past Xmas because the border was closed.

Hand-hold, anyone? I'll be OK tomorrow. Just in despair now.

@MarshaBradyo

An Aus epidemiologist talked about the door open thing on radio this morning. Incredible.

It’s horrifying what difference a nebuliser seems to make. From what I can understand nebulised virus particles are basically superpower suspended in the air to catch other people hence crossed the corridor (plus a high viral load) No one was doing anything wrong though, they didn’t realise this was a risk event.

Sorry you're going through this - it's hard but hang on in there. I'm worried that no-one appears to have been vaccinated yet though - that needs to start and quickly.

Just before Xmas both state govts decided to close the border with less than 48 hours' notice. Fine for happy campers who could hop in a car and go home, but many in remote areas didn't get the news in time. They got trapped. They couldn't get back to their jobs and homes, had to pay for accomm and only recently have they been allowed to return.

This is something that I think many people don’t understand about us. I was on a thread the other day where people were complaining about being stuck in different countries to the families and should they move to the same country (given no end in sight to this shitshow), when I said it was essentially the same for many people within the same country they didn’t get it. There was faffle about how it was different as they have to deal with flights, entry requirements, quarantine, logistics etc. They couldn’t get it through that we have the same issue within a country when separated by States. Just couldn’t grasp it. We also have flights (distances to big for most to drive), that when borders snap shut have only a fraction of people able to make it in/out or you are stuck indefinitely in the wrong side of the border as flight capacity is limited then shut; quarantine required when borders snap shut; permits/paperwork required to cross borders. Doesn’t make a difference if coming from the other side of the globe or 10km over a border between the different States most of the time now.

I will say that I think complaining about Melbourne’s lockdown is a bit tone deaf though given UK’s history and experience of lockdowns. I’m also impressed with the take-away option. I recall when Sydney did it’s initial lockdown March/April there was no takeaway etc, was not considered essential. Takeaway only came in when they loosened the lockdown after the first few weeks. After that though we quickly let rip and reopened everything widely and never looked back fortunately. The Northern Beaches was a blip and they were able to lock down but operate pretty normally amongst themselves within their area.

There may not be a distance rule in England but that hasn't stopped police forces issuing fines for people being 5 miles away from their homes.

Me and dd drove 4 miles to a nature reserve yesterday for a walk and I was worried about getting in trouble. There's a beautiful and non crowded nature reserve 18 miles away and I daren't go.

it will be ok althugh i thin having fans at the tennis was a silly idea

People in Australia honestly have no idea how awful it has been in the UK living under restrictions for months on end and thousands of deaths. Give me the Melbourne lockdown any day.

Yes- my great aunt was visiting her sister in a different state when the borders closed and never got home for months because of this. It seemed madness for a handful of cases. i also think i read about a woman in rural NSW who was having a troubled pregnancy. She was not permitted to go to her closest hospital just across the border but had to be flown to Sydney. The baby died. That is just nuts and an utter tragedy.

I was scared I might never see my parents again especially when DDad was diagnosed with cancer. Now I am sort of resigned in a totally helpless way to the idea that it is quite feasible I will never see him again.

When i first moved to the UK 20 years ago we said that it was fine because at the end of the day Australia was just a plane ride away. Now it seems a universe away.

To be fair it's only 5 days and then they hope to allow fans back in time to watch the tennis finals..... lovely.... I'd swap that in a blink of an eye @groovergirl

So...to be clear... Melbourne & Victoria has trodden a very different path than the rest of Australia. A path that is about to commemorate a year of continuous lockdown. 188 days of hard lockdown (yes, harder than 95% of the globe), and the rest at varying levels of med/hard, mostly involving no school, fully masked, one person per household at the (barely any) shops, limited exercise, no gatherings or visitors at all, curfews and the 5km rule.

Add to that the long distances and lack of services to rural areas. There was not one take away/delivered meal I could access from March to October, bar 2 weeks in july. And every other kind of delivery (supermarket, etc) was very unreliable. Sometimes less than half what I ordered arrived, out of a limited choice in the first place. I couldn’t access my asthma meds and my 75yo mother went without vital meds for months due to shortages. Couldn’t get school supplies (pencils, exercise books) for homeschooling.

Every time we thought we could breath again, we’d get slammed back down into another lockdown. Every short lockdown of days turned into months. While we watched Europe (admittedly not everyone) play on crowded summer beaches on our nightly news. We really worried for you guys, and your crazy death rates.

Now, we know how lucky we’ve been with so few Covid deaths. Most of our death spike comes from untreated and too-late diagnosed conditions, and a mental health chasm. Five more days lockdown is fine, our duty. We’re only too wearily used to it. Five days of watching you all getting a vaccine I won’t be offered until June at the earliest. But don’t think of it as a paltry 5 day lockdown. It’s 5 days, on top of a year.

Sorry OP but seriously?? Have a whinge to your nearest and dearest but 5 days ffs compared to last year(when i lived in Melb) hardly worth a mention.
We moved to QLD in Oct&where we are is barely touched by covid: as a consequence im really mindful about what I post on social media as life is pretty much like an alternate universe compared to most places right nowt just & it feels like rubbing peoples faces in the normality my mates in Blighty can only dream about.

UK citizens also won’t be getting the vaccine though. We’re not all being prioritised. The government has decided that nursery teachers and state school teachers should die for our jobs and there are other professions with no protection or covid secure measures too.

It has been really hard watching friends, relatives and colleagues die. No end in sight.

We are not all getting a vaccine any time soon. According to the online vaccine calculator I am due to get mine about September. I truly do not understand why teachers will not be a prioritised group either if the schools are expected to re-open in March. I have alot of sympathy for any government trying to deal with covid, but Boris needs to stop trying to appease everybody and make some CONSISTENT decisions.

The crowded summer beaches here were crazy. I thought we were too relaxed too soon.

(due to get it in September and I am asthmatic also)

Ffs it's five days we have been living this hell for close on a year!

I'm in Melbourne. 5 days is nothing, I don't have a lot of time for people complaining about it.

I almost deleted the contact details of a friend from Perth who started whinging on Facebook about their 5 day lockdown. It was so so insensitive to people in Melbourne who had lost the better part of a year.

Likewise, I don't think a global, let alone UK based forum is the place to complain or seek empathy over a 5 day lockdown, which has a good chance of working and protecting us all from the virus. The UK are dealing with a different beast entirely. They have all the loss of freedom with bodies on the news every night, and far less hope.

I think a lot of people in Melbourne are genuinely psychologically reeling from the lockdown last year and this 5 dau snap lockdown has brought a lot of last year's trauma to the surface. That's my uneducated take anyway, because I really don't see the big deal about 5 days from home in the scheme of everything,

@CupOfTeaAlonePlease I think you're probably right. It will bring back memories of having been locked down for months, along with the probable fear that it won't just be 5 days.

It was a very short-sighted decision to host the Australian Open and entirely money driven. Wimbledon cancelled their tournament last year so the Australian Open could have been cancelled too.

I'm British myself, and yes it's been hell here, but I hate the competitive misery. This last year has been shit for everyone and we're all entitled to whinge sometimes without other people being competitive about it.

I completely understand that this situation must be somewhat frustrating for Aussies but, with the greatest respect, things could be worse. A hell of a lot worse.

You could be in the same mess as the U.K.

I can assure you, there are 65 million of us up here who would swap places with you in a heartbeat.

Stage 4 for us is the strictest level. Schools, non-food shops, libraries and public pools will close, restaurants can only do socially-distanced takeaway, one person per household may visit the supermarket once a day, two hours' outdoor exercise only permitted. We can't go further than 5km from home unless we're an essential worker.

How awful, couldn't possibly imagine what 5 days of that might be like 🤔 or, you know, a worse version 😂😂😂

@MrsTerryPratchett

Unless you did the Melbourne lockdown, you know zip.

Educate yourself.

Presumably you did it. Which means you know zip about the UK lockdown. Unless you've been travelling between, which would make you an arsehole.

This is my favourite response!

It was a very short-sighted decision to host the Australian Open and entirely money driven. Wimbledon cancelled their tournament last year so the Australian Open could have been cancelled too.

This was utterly mind-blowing. Dan throws lockdowns around like old socks then goes and does this.

and says the tennis players are essential workers so they can continue to play.

Like I said upthread this has completely infuriated my family.

@timeisnotaline

I’m in melbourne. It’s 5 days. It’s crappy but isn’t it a bit insensitive to choose to complain about this on a uk site? I know how much tougher it’s been on my friends there.

Thank you

Hi,
Permanent way of life in uk
No end in sight

@Nitpickpicnic

So...to be clear... Melbourne & Victoria has trodden a very different path than the rest of Australia. A path that is about to commemorate a year of continuous lockdown. 188 days of hard lockdown (yes, harder than 95% of the globe), and the rest at varying levels of med/hard, mostly involving no school, fully masked, one person per household at the (barely any) shops, limited exercise, no gatherings or visitors at all, curfews and the 5km rule.

Add to that the long distances and lack of services to rural areas. There was not one take away/delivered meal I could access from March to October, bar 2 weeks in july. And every other kind of delivery (supermarket, etc) was very unreliable. Sometimes less than half what I ordered arrived, out of a limited choice in the first place. I couldn’t access my asthma meds and my 75yo mother went without vital meds for months due to shortages. Couldn’t get school supplies (pencils, exercise books) for homeschooling.

Every time we thought we could breath again, we’d get slammed back down into another lockdown. Every short lockdown of days turned into months. While we watched Europe (admittedly not everyone) play on crowded summer beaches on our nightly news. We really worried for you guys, and your crazy death rates.

Now, we know how lucky we’ve been with so few Covid deaths. Most of our death spike comes from untreated and too-late diagnosed conditions, and a mental health chasm. Five more days lockdown is fine, our duty. We’re only too wearily used to it. Five days of watching you all getting a vaccine I won’t be offered until June at the earliest. But don’t think of it as a paltry 5 day lockdown. It’s 5 days, on top of a year.

That does sound like shit - sympathies, this is all so fucked up, isn’t it?

Every single case here now is a bloody quarantine escapee -the new UK strain - so clearly this new strain is VERY contagious.

So much misunderstanding about the Aust response here.

Yep, the UK has had lockdowns for ages - we in Melbourne get that. We did well over 100 days last year to bring our case numbers down from, broadly, what the entire UK had at the same time on the exact same day. (One day in July 2020 in Victoria 723, same day UK 763 - it's a Guardian link:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/04/the-uk-can-learn-from-victoria-how-to-bring-its-covid-second-wave-under-control

From down here, much of the England response for nearly a year now has been this half-arsed oh here's a voucher for the pub, yep head off to Europe for yer hols, let's ease up for Christmas, as led by the ever-bullshitting Boris. Oh, and don't forget the ooh, we can't close our borders coz we need all the trucks/food/French cheese/cheap German groceries .

So many of you mistake the Australian national response for the much more robust campaign led by our premiers (which is where today's lockdown decision comes from). PM Morrison controls the national response, premiers control the states - and Morrison has been rolled on his "live with the virus" bullshit. Over and over.

To the point that today, he was all for the "proportionate" response to this UK strain that has arrived here because we are (albeit much too slowly) bringing Aussies home and they are bringing mutant strains of a virus - because that's what viruses do when they are not properly controlled. They mutate and evolve. Cheers for that also Boris that's quite a gift to the colonies.

Also .. I totally get that Mumsnet is UK Based. But I do think, from the many, many posts I read each day (and the many news stories in our Australian media ripped from these forums), that it's pretty rank to suggest somebody can't come on and have a vent about a tough time looming as a person, woman, mother or any variation of the same because they don't live in Stowe or WW2E or whatever the frig London postcode you call it.

It's not your situation, nope. But - as someone who's in Melbourne, heading back into a shitty lockdown, after the bloody hard yards we did just months ago - a little empathy wouldn't go astray.

We'd extend a hand to you all.

Sorry for the long post. I don't make many, and will probably head back under my (adopted) Akubra after this. But gee, the mean spiritedness hit me where it hurts.