Well, the bubble we’ve been living in for a little while now has burst, and COVID-19 is rearing its ugly head again.
Life had almost felt a bit normal for a while there. Working in the office, Luca in daycare, shopping and social life etc. We have been so incredibly lucky to have a low infection rate here, and that’s for a long list of reasons. Our geographic location, actions of our politicians, actions of the public…strategic response but also very lucky.
The only indication of a pandemic has been the sanitiser everywhere, which I truly wouldn’t mind continuing indefinitely! I don’t remember the last time I got a cold and that’s surely due to the increased hygiene.
So, how did COVD come back?
A cleaner at one of the quarantine hotels in Brisbane caught it unfortunately, and potentially spread it around the city. And because it’s school holidays right now people from Brisbane are constantly travelling around. The region where I live is super busy at this time of the year, and a lot of those people come from Brisbane.
Yesterday they announced they’re doing a 3-day lockdown from 6pm for the people in Brisbane. The plan was to go hard early and hopefully prevent the virus from spreading. While a lot of people did the right thing a lot of people also immediately bailed from the city to surrounding areas, including my region.
There was also another person who flew from Melbourne into Brisbane and headed up to my region too. She had flown from the UK to Melbourne, tested positive, completed 10 days of quarantine, didn’t have any symptoms so she was free to fly. Then tested positive here for the super contagious strain. Greeaaaat. It’s started a necessary conversation of why the heck people aren’t tested before they leave quarantine though. I would have thought it was logic but there you go. It will be interesting to see what comes of it.
Needless to say the entire southeast of the state is on high alert – my region included. The next 7 days are going to be tense while we work out whether it’s been spread. If it was spread about Brisbane then it’s likely it’s going to have been spread here.
I really hope it hasn’t.
I’ve decided that I’m going to sew Luca a mask since we don’t have any small enough for him. I figure it would be handy to have them available just in case. I’ve downloaded a pattern so far and just need to cut out the layers and sew it tomorrow.
My sewing isn’t great, so this will be interesting!
On a fun note, tonight was the regular family trivia that we started doing weekly/fortnight since Covid first broke out in March. It’s hosted via zoom so we can include friends and family in the UK, and it’s a lot of fun!
Tonight on zoom my aunt proudly showed off her prized possession – toilet paper. Australians are a bit odd – when there’s an announcement of lock down there’s panic buying about toilet paper and food. So once they announced the Brisbane lock down the panic buying began!
On a more sombre note it was a bit odd to explain to the UK family members about our lock down after a single positive COVID case. In comparison they had 1000 deaths the day before. Such a contrast, and not a positive one.
Anyways, stay safe everyone! Sanitise your hands, mask up and stay home as much as you can.