IMOA

My brother and his family live in Melbourne and I travelled to Melbourne this week on a business trip. My late 70’s parents were down there a couple of weeks ago. We have trips to both Hobart and Adelaide booked for the next few months and I’m avoiding booking a trip to queensland my partner wants us to take not because we live in fear but because, well, I like this century and hate Brisbane. You clearly have convinced yourself about what things are like here but from the perspective of someone actually living here you are utterly clueless.

Cathay1101

Precisely HB7 , I'm hardly implying the world is falling in, as many here have said, life in Australia is largely normal on a day-to-day basis, but the system that has been erected to maintain that sense of normalcy has caused undue stress and calamities to thousands of families who have been forced to change plans, locked into hotel quarantine (getting on a flight only to find the State you flew from is now subject to quarantine where you're headed) and severely curbed personal liberty and the democratic freedoms some of us hold dear (some of which are in violation of international laws, which Australia helped to draft in some instances...)

This sort of attitude of 'you can't know what it's like because you're not there' is such a nonsense. I'm in daily contact with multiple Sydneysiders, my Grandparents on the Sunny Coast, my cousins in Perth and my best mate down in Canberra, who are all waking up and going to bed in the same country that you are, mate. I'm also hearing - daily - their fears, concerns and frustrations as to living in a state where a single case (or even a cluster in single numbers) can lock them down. All of them think it's pathetic. Is their opinion somehow more valid than mine simply because they are there? Is mine somehow less valid given my geographical distance? They're equally - if not more - pissed off that they can't see their multiple friends and family who live overseas over a virus with a median fatality rate of 80, which can be almost certainly prevented with vaccines that have been available for months (and by now should have been rolled out to those at risk of death/hospitalisation in a country that allegedly had managed the public health side of this so effectively)

The fear of being sucked into a hotel quarantine for a fortnight has stopped my Grandparents visiting my sister and parents for more than a year: There is simply no way to plan for a case slipping through quarantine and Commissar Anastacia shoving NSW on the hotel quarantine list. It beggars belief. You've got the exact same sense of normalcy in Florida, California, Texas, Israel, the UAE and, increasingly, the UK and parts of Europe. And these are countries which issued emergency authorisations for the vaccines and were having to manage widespread infection simultaneously. If these countries were able to manage the pandemic and plan for a roll-out, why couldn't Canberra? They had 50% less work to do? We're now enjoying relative normalcy, too (admittedly with a mask here and there) without these ridiculous restrictions. In most places, you've now also got less people dying daily from COVID than would normally die from the flu during flu season in most of those places now, too. (UK, Israel and Texas too, I believe.) Your sense of normalcy and the manner in which you've convinced yourself of some sense of Australian exceptionalism strikes me, actually, as utterly clueless.

Moreover, unlike the US and the rest of the G7, Australia is still vaccinating at a snail's pace and has no excuse - wasn't that the point of waiting to see whether the vaccines worked? Surely that time was being used to prepare, no?

So I refuse to buy your argument that I've convinced myself of what the situation looks like from afar. Quite the contrary - I've heard from multiple sources on the ground in multiple states, watched Australian media coverage extensively to see what they're feeding you and undertaken intensive independent research into the latest developments - particularly concerning vaccine efficacy (which I think we can all agree is our way out of this mess) - to formulate my opinion on the matter. Just because you share the majority opinion of the Australian electorate - who are starting to battle the US Mid-West for the greatest stake to the world's most isolationist electoral body with every passing day - doesn't make your opinion a unanimous reflection of the views of the nation.

Australia will be left behind, and I won't apologise for wanting to see my Grandparents before they pass, either. (And before you say get yourself home and endure hotel quarantine - not all of us have the luxury of a fortnight of free time and thousands of dollars - just ask the hundreds of Australians who are now unemployed and stranded abroad as a consequence of these policies.)

nancypants

This unfortunately is an issue of confirmation bias and echo chambers. Life for me is basically normal, other than the fact that until recently I haven’t contemplated leaving the state on non-emergency business, and ordinarily I would have been out of the country several times in the last 12 months. I have mates and an ex husband in Melbourne who have been through multiple lock downs and words like fear and anxiety are not used. The dogs still get walked, they still go to work and out shopping. The former Mr Pants for the first time ever is confined to a hotel room in Hobart on a work trip but is taking it in his stride. One mate had to have his wedding in the main lockdown with only him, the wife and 2 witnesses (the horror!).
Mates in Brisbane have been through a few snap lockdowns, same situation, life goes on with some small delays to things. Mates in Townsville, life is totally normal

Meanwhile my UK mates are in regular correspondence with me. “Horrible”, “media blackouts”, “government lockdown plans despite vaccination”. Very little positivity coming out of that communication. Still haven’t been able to travel intra-country for most of the year. Still can’t travel abroad (they are all normal people with no urgent business overseas, other than 1 who has a son in the US but isn’t a citizen or PR so can’t go because of the ongoing presidential proclamation)

My Aussie circle would categorise this as at worst minor annoyances. But then I have surrounded myself with people who roll with the punches.


Truly objective measures of normality are exceptionally hard to make

bensyd

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

The UK had 127,000 deaths. The US four times that.

I think just about anyone would rather spend an hour on the phone with Qantas rescheduling a flight than many multiples of that time suffering the death of a loved one and organising a funeral.

HB7

No one is debating the success of Australia last year with regards to Covid. However, moving forward, for potentially the next 12-18 months, Australia will be in a state of flux where snap lockdowns will be continuously called.

And people have lost a lot more than "an hour on the phone". If you don't know that by now, then maybe do your research.

HB7

Once again, this is data based on you and your circle only. Many people have had different experiences.

With regards to the UK - I was wondering when you said little positivity coming out of that communication, was that of what is happening in the UK or Australia?

IMOA

Wow, impressive rant. Let’s just be clear here, you’re the one telling us that we’re living in fear and if we’re not it’s because we don’t travel interstate or don’t have family interstate, I was simply pointing out that you’re wrong. I absolutely know there are people like what you’re describing with the family you’re in contact with, I know some of them myself. What we’re saying is that they aren’t representative, especially in Sydney where we don’t have snap lockdowns, border closures etc. My experience is that those views tend to be far more commen in states like Qld and WA where the government has played up the ‘only we can save you, it’s a jungle out there’ narrative, but that’s not representative of the broader community where people are simply getting on with life and have been doing so for some time.

On the rest of your rant I’ll make a few things clear so you understand where I’m coming from. I disagree with snap lockdowns, I think they’re excessive and are really about politics and low quality contact tracing. I disagree strongly with state border closures, especially for a small number of cases. I don’t agree with the bans on Australians leaving the country and I think the vaccine rollout has been poor and generally mismanaged considering the amount of time they had to prepare. I think I’ve made posts on pretty much all of those things over the past little while.

But it’s quite possible, and I can assure you very common, to have those views and also not live in fear of those things. I disagree with random assaults as well, and am aware they occur, but I still have 5 or so dinner bookings for the next fortnight including some in ‘scary’ places like kings cross.

Really, you can believe what you want about how things are here, you’ve made that quite clear. But don’t get all upset when after lecturing people about how they really feel that some of them point out that you’re talking out your arse.

Mwenenzi

Does seem strange that some posters are giving an opinion of what (terrible) life is here, yet are not currently in Australia. To me its 95% of what is was like in 2019. Unlike USA, EU UK people in the AU community are not currently dying from Covid-19 or in ICU. Those that are in hospital are from the incoming flights. Death rates per million here are ~1/50 of many other places.

I know people in USA who have died. One was younger, far fitter and in better health than me, but is now 6 feet under. As his wife told me if they had been living in AU he would be alive. And another couple in USA who are afraid to leave home (even with 1 vaccination) for fear of getting CV19 and then dying. But know others in USA who have continued with a very restricted life.

nancypants

that’s exactly my point, until someone comes up with an objective measure of what is “normalcy”, all we have are peoples subjective opinions. People tend to surround themselves with people who think in similar manners so it’s natural that someone who is not a fan of the way Australia is handling matters will likely find their circle of friends and family has similar views

the View from my UK contacts, who are almost all intensive care or anaesthetic physicians, but a few teachers and my brother who does something and gets paid for it but I don’t know what, is that they have found the UK’s handling of matters pretty miserable. Very little normality subjectively experienced over there

of course some in the UK would perhaps like to have the choice of their grandparents alive and needing to spend time and money to see them again, rather than said grandparents dying alone with one of my mates outside the room, having balanced a couple of warm water filled latex gloves on their hand to give them impression of someone holding it!!

Cathay1101

I knew you'd jump at this as soon as it was posted. C'mon, you can clearly tell what I'm trying to say here: Life may 'feel' - and in many respects appear normal with respect to how things are day-to-day, but the draconian system that is used to sustain that sense of normalcy is what renders it abnormal. Ergo you're living what feels like a normal life when in fact it is being sustained by a system that is anything but. For someone who claims Rose Bay Water Airport is their local terminus, I'd have thought you might have figured that one out. That being said, Palm Beach is about as far as you can get these days although there were even clusters up there at some point, weren't there?

I'm not denying that - Australia has done a brilliant job at handling the pandemic - but the repatriation of Australians and logical quarantine measures are not mutually exclusive to that success.

Exactly.

Right, so I never claimed that I was speaking for the majority, just implying that there are those amongst you - a significant minority at least - who do not feel the same way as you and their views matter. Moreover, the numbers in your camp will, inevitably begin to decline as Australia's draconian system becomes incredibly laborious in light of the rest of the world's reopening. As nancypants has raised upthread - echo chambers. We all hear what we want to hear because we talk to folks who think and behave like we do without knowing it. I'm the first to confess that the bulk of Australians feel like you for the time being, but that doesn't mean I'm talking out of my arse, thank you very much. I am just as qualified as you to hold an opinion, and for that opinion to be representative of a sentiment amongst the Australian populous.

And don't try for a minute to convince me that the Cross is dangerous...

97% of those admitted to hospital with COVID in the UK had a co-morbidity. The median fatality age was above 80. The number of those under 50 who died from COVID and who had nothing wrong with them barely scraped past a thousand. It overwhelmingly affected those with existing respiratory and cardiovascular problems, and those without were almost certainly destined to die within the next 12 months, anyway. Lockdowns, by contrast, plunged a million people into economic destitution in GB and, because of how poorly-timed they were, they did incredibly little to prevent the excess deaths we were all so frightened of. That's why Sweden had less excess deaths, as did numerous anti-lockdown US states. Believe me, I'm not saying the UK has got it right by any stretch, either.

bensyd

Huh?

HB7

I don't think there is any way to characterise the UK's handling of this other than a shambles, disastrous, catastrophic and in my personal opinion, criminal. I believe the government, including the PM and Secretary of State for Health have blood on their hands. The one thing they have handled very well is the vaccine roll out.

I'm in the UK, and I know well over 30 Aussies here, including friends and colleagues. Not a single one of them wants to be in Australia at this point in time. With the vaccine rollout being pretty successful, the next 12 months here (and in the EU, US) will basically see all restrictions lifted. At the peak we had 39k people in hospital with Covid, now its less than 900.

I don't think Australia's response versus the UK to this last year can even be compared. It's on a different stratosphere. However, the Australian government and their scientific advisors have arrogantly said "we don't have a problem, so we will wait and take our time to approve the vaccines and get them to people". Then the government's messaging was pretty horrific, because its on them to highlight the importance of vaccines. The complacency and arrogance of those in charge is what is causing this. And it will result in very difficult financial consequences for many people, and dire consequences for some who will lose their jobs, livelihoods and a lot more. Maybe that is not the situation for you or your circle, but it is for many others.

nancypants

Interesting news from the former mr pants, Qantas (presumably CASA?) mandates 24 hours off post vaccine, but won’t roster people a couple of days off to get it, so sick leave has gone up which is causing some upset

i’m day 3 laid up with high fever, nausea, headaches and muscle pains after my 2nd dose. I’m very happy to have got the vaccine but I wouldn’t have been fit to work any of the days so far. Luckily I am on leave at present but perhaps this is an area for improvement- 1-2 days paid vaccination leave?!

HB7

Mate, get off your high horse. Not a single person said life is terrible. Some people have suffered terrible consequences though. Secondly, you seem to forget about the over 900 deaths in Australia and the 4-5 month lockdown Victorians endured last year.

This is about the vaccine rollout and how badly it is going. For you to lump everything into a simplistic view of "posters saying how terrible life is in Australia without living here" is completely inaccurate and wrong. You aren't the authority on how every single Australian feels about life now.