The End of Lockdown in Melbourne

262 days. That’s the chunk of us Melbournians lives that have been in lockdown over the past 20 or so months. It’s a long time. It’s long enough to rewire the brain of adults and wire the brains of children. 

As we tiptoe back into a new normality, most of us recognise that things won’t be the same as they once were. When we get to the point when all borders are open, not a restriction in sight, COVID retreated into the population along with the common cold and the flu, things will still not be the same as they once were before. 

Not because nature has changed, although it is constantly. The world will have transformed because we’ve changed. I don’t want to speak for other city’s and country’s experience, but I think I can talk on behalf of Melbournian’s and our collective experience.

It’s been hard. It’s been very difficult. 

One of the greatest difficulties has been the politicking around what is a public health crisis. 

Most of the undermining of key health messaging hasn’t been done out of driving a nuanced discussion about what measures should or should not be in place, there’s always a room and a need for that. No, the politicking has been driven by the same old tiresome point scoring, the one upmanship typical of our national debates that was merely just boring before the pandemic came. 

Within the confines of the pandemic, the political nitpicking by politicians, business leaders, C-grade celebrities and ‘influencers’ has not only been damaging to public health messaging, it has damaged people’s sense of wellbeing, their mental health. At a time when job losses, business failures and the risk of severe illness was enough to make people feel lousy. 

Victoria copped the brunt of this opportunism. It made life harder. The incompetent bungling of the vaccine rollout and the political blame shifting made things worse. Yet will still persisted to keep an eye out for one another. On the street, in our parks and in our markets. 

I for one, am very much looking forward to things opening back up. To do things we haven’t been able to do and to see the people we haven’t been able to see. But despite how terrible being in lockdown for 263 days has been, there is a part of me that will miss part of the collective resilience and stoicism the vast majority of people have shown over the last 20 months. 

Every night of lockdown, I looked across the harbour from where I live, and I can see seven or so apartment towers. Come night fall, the gentle glow from people’s homes would gradually light up the cold Melbourne gloom. Within that light, there was comfort. 

A visual representation of the hundreds, maybe thousands of other people that were doing what I was doing. Staying home. Getting on with things, knowing that the sacrifices we were taking would hopefully pay dividends for us, our families and our community. It was crappy, it was boring but necessary. Much of the time we had no clue when it was going to end. 

This is what our community did together. Under sufferance, but we did it. While we were doing it, cleaners, bus drivers, truck drivers supermarket workers and of course our healthcare professionals were diligently and quietly keeping us safe without fuss, without grandstanding. 

It may be wishful thinking, but I hope we can retain a fraction of the community spirit and the sense of care for one another we developed over those 263 days and nights. It affirmed much of what I love about this place. The world may open up over coming months and I will go out into it. But I will always return to this town, because I know I will be surrounded by people that collectively have had a similar experience and that at the end of the day, we’ve demonstrated our care for each other. 

Time to get on the beers.