Before We Think About an End to Our Lockdown…
An Important Message to Our Leaders.
Most of us don’t want to think about the current lockdown and most people would not trust any positive promises and modelling from the government and who could blame them. All these promises and modelling seem like quick mad dash schemes to make people think that the government is doing enough, but the constant press conferences seem like a never ending rehearsal and our country needs more, especially NSW and VIC. This lockdown should serve as a wake up call to our government as they delayed vaccine rollouts and became complacent on restrictions after months of solid post lockdown perks. Covid can strike at any time and leave us dumbfounded.
As I thought about how more and more people are getting vaccinated, I thought about how our new post lockdown life should look like. I found that there are currently 8 variants of Covid-19 swirling around the world. There are currently 4 variants that are areas of concern for W.H.O. which are Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta. Then there are 4 variants of interest which are Eta, Kappa, Lambda and Iota. Although the variants of interest aren’t a major concern yet they could become a major concern later on and these are factors that need to come into future modelling and decisions on relaxing some restrictions.
Another thing to consider is that if our country leaders pull together to get Australia on top of the Delta variant and other potential variant risks then it will help other countries cope better as well. Other countries pay attention to what works on dealing with covid. They are equally fearful of this virus especially seeing how chaotic the virus has been in countries such as the UK, US and India. If improving our economy and helping our nation thrive isn’t motivating enough then we should take these precautions to help other nations find out what works because at the moment we are the worst example of what to do when it comes to this pandemic.
NSW needs to follow suit in states like Queensland and Western Australia. Gladys’ people are becoming increasingly more and more angry at her repetitiveness, slow tightening of restrictions and not expanding on essential services such as Hospitals who are currently overflowing with patients and need more support and funding from the premier. Sorry seems to be the hardest word but the least she could do is copy what Anastasia Palecek and Mark McGowans decisions are because having more premiers agree on decisions can help put Australians at ease but also improve on what we are doing because what Gladys has been doing has clearly not been enough and her decisions may cost her the next election.
Circling back to promises made by Gladys, her positive attitude towards high vaccination rates may be helpful in thinking about ending the lockdown but our constant high rates of infection are still large and rising and until community transmission numbers severely decrease our lockdown could still be in place for months to come. Gladys is trying to distract us by vaccination rates but the number of infections are still crucially important. The more Gladys focuses on bad news the more heat she receives from other leaders and her people. I think it’s important that we keep an open mind about the lockdown so we don’t keep in a state of depression or get our hopes dashed. The important thing to remember is preparedness. We as individuals need to call our friends, message and video chat, buy our groceries online or late in non peak hours. We need to limit our movement in every way we can. If you don’t have a treadmill and need to go for a walk, try to limit your walk down the street by dancing for an hour. A good dance can make you happy and also increase your step count. Most importantly take care of your mental health and call a lifeline as many times a week if you need to. We can urge our leaders to take action but action always starts at home. So stay home and stay safe as best you can.
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