Ron Gabriel

I remember in late 2019 I read a short article in my news feed about a mysterious disease affecting a number of people in Wuhan China, during that time there were a lot things going on around Australia, mainly the bushfires and extreme weather that they said was once in a hundred years. Little did we know what was coming in a few weeks.

There was something about that article, which I recall was only about half a page long that struck me as ominous and I was hoping that I wasn’t going to read more about it again. And so here we are three months later closing in on almost half a million confirmed cases of this Covid-19 and over twenty one thousand deaths. I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like in other countries that are doing it tough, here is Australia we are worried about toilet paper shortages and whether barber shops should be closed or not. In Italy and Spain, they are just fighting for survival. My family and I are lucky because at the moment we are safe, we have our health and noone in our immediate family and friends have been exposed to this virus. Question is for how long. Days before the hoarding of toilet paper emerged, I sent a message to my and told her to start stocking up on daily essentials but I was quite sure that was. Truth is, I’ve never had to think about this situation where an entire city or nation could be locked down. Deep in the back of mind, I knew we had to be prepared because something big is about to happen. That was four weeks ago today.

Australia had 23 cases then, being an island, all of the cases were travellers coming back from overseas. Today that number is 2799 since 3pm this afternoon. I don’t think we acted quick enough, we didn’t lock down sooner and enforce travel bans when they should have. NSW authorities let 2700 passengers aboard a cruise ship enter Sydney and without telling them to self isolate, 130 of those passengers have tested positive to Covid-19 and it’s likely more of them will be infected as well as those people they have been in contact with. While local and federal government are making swift and decisive actions now, I think the days and weeks that passed were key in getting ahead of the curve rather than trying to flatten it now. I’m no pandemic expert or have any medical background, simply speaking from hindsight and a bit of common sense. Government and the citizens are worried about the economy and so they should be but without the people, there is no economy. The situation here in Sydney are changing rapidly and it’s almost impossible where we will be in 2 or 4 weeks time. A lot of people are going to go through tough times but without your health and a dash of optimism you’ll never survive.

Everyone needs to take this seriously and do what you need to do to keep your family safe. Sift through the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories, do your own research and fact check the information that you may receive from your own family and friends. Educate your children of the dangers of this virus and how it could affect them and those around them.