Lockdown in Melbourne
We are on day 10 of Melbourne's fourth lockdown since the beginning of the Covid pandemic. We've only been here for two of them, the first was a short five day "circuit breaker" in February where an outbreak linked to a quarantine hotel worker was swiftly contained. The other two were last year, while we were still living in Canada - where we were in our own version of lockdowns throughout 2020.
Prior to the current outbreak, the state of Victoria had gone nearly three months without any community transmission, enough time for everyone to have gotten pretty relaxed about the whole Covid thing. No mask wearing, regular school and extra-curricular activities, eating in restaurants... basically our day-to-day lives were completely normal. But unfortunately a man was infected with Covid while in hotel quarantine in South Australia - he was in the room next door to a family with Covid, and he tested negative while in quarantine but then positive once he was out and had flown to Melbourne. I feel so sorry for this guy, what bad luck! He flew all the way to Australia, stayed in a two week mandatory quarantine, only to end up with Covid - and start an outbreak.
The lockdown was only supposed to be for 7 days initially, starting on Friday May 28th. Lockdown here is pretty strict. There are only five reasons you can leave your home:
You are only allowed to travel within a 5km radius of your home, and have to wear a mask at all times, even outside.
It's been widely publicised that Australia's vaccination rollout has been extremely slow up until this point. Previous to the lockdown, only those over 50 were able to get vaccinated, and not many people seemed in a rush to do so. So (in my opinion) a silver lining to this outbreak is that it has given people a reason to go and get the vaccine, as no one wants to go in and out of lockdown forever. The government has also lowered the age, so anyone aged 40 or over can now get the vaccine. Over 40 you say? This has got to be the first time since my birthday that I'm actually glad to be 40!
So a few days ago I lined up for about two hours at a walk-in vaccination centre at the Royal Exhibition Centre to get my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, which was weirdly exciting. You can also make a booking by calling the Covid Hotline, but the phone lines were incredibly busy and I could never get through. I decided to go to a walk-in centre on a whim and a friend from work came with me, so it kind of felt like the closest thing to a social outing during lockdown!
Last week Andy and I had to teach online, and Ella was home from school doing online lessons as well. Daycares are still open, but unfortunately Ollie had conjunctivitis and so also stayed home all week. It was pretty chaotic managing the two kids with our online lessons, I'm not going to lie! Ollie probably got in more TV watching than he has ever had in his life, and there was a lot of scrambling around just before our lessons started. Andy and I now have to do our lesson planning at night once the kids go to bed as it is impossible to get any work done in what would normally be our prep time at school. I've never been good at working at night, even in university I was never one of those people who would stay up all night writing a last minute paper. So I really struggle with this aspect of working from home... once the kids are in bed all I want to do is a bit of yoga, make a cup of tea, and maybe watch some Netflix or read my book.
We find it best to make a schedule each morning, so we are both aware of each other's teaching schedule and can plan the day.
Here's Ollie living his best life... eating a chocolate croissant and watching Paw Patrol on the iPad. He'll never want to go back to daycare now!
I was super impressed with Ella's school and teacher this week. Ella has had three half-hour lessons at the same time every day: 9am, 10am and 12:30pm. Two of them are with the whole class and one is in a small group lesson. She has her own little set up in our laundry room where she does her classes. It's handy as we can close the door (I'm on the other side in the dining room teaching my lessons).
For me, teaching maths to high school students online is not that bad - it's not ideal but it's doable when we have to. I have no idea how I would do something engaging for a class full of 5 and 6 year olds. I am simply in awe of Ella's teacher, who managed to keep the interest of these children all week (and all while sounding very enthusiastic and happy to do so... even by Friday afternoon!).
Here is an example of one of the tasks they had to do in between online sessions - instructions for drawing a picture. I'm pretty impressed with how fall Ella's writing is coming along!
Luckily the playgrounds are still open here, as are the cafés for take away. So we have a daily trip to our local café (we must support small business during lockdown after all), and one or two trips to the park. We nearly always see a friend or two from Ella's school, and the weather has been pretty decent for Melbourne in winter... lots of sun last week, and temperatures in the high teens.
Ella has also really taken to riding her bike over the past week, which is excellent. We can travel to parks that are further away without driving, and I can even get in a little jog as I try to keep up with her. It is quite hilly around our house, so that was a challenge as she learned to ride: it was hard riding up a hill and she was too scared to ride downhill. But as she gains confidence these hills are less and less of an issue. Ollie is also balancing more on his balance bike, and I think as soon as he is ready we will move him to a bike with pedals. Family bike rides are in our future!
Not surprisingly, the lockdown was extended another 7 days in the greater Melbourne area with a few changes to restrictions: Year 11 and 12 students are back in school for onsite learning, and we can travel up to 10km from our home. This means that this week I will go to school for my Year 11 class, but still teach my Year 7s online (from home as long as I have time to travel between classes). Andy doesn't teach Year 11s or 12s so he is still at home full-time with Ella. Ollie, fingers crossed, seems well enough to return to daycare on Monday, so that will be one less complication at home.
And then we wait, a few more days, to see if our lockdown will be extended again. We have returned to a time of checking the news everyday to see how many new cases there are, and to see if there are any new exposure sites around where we live. The one good thing to come out of this is watching the "Meanwhile in Australia" videos from actor Jimmy Rees, a humorous take on how politicians in the individual states react to each new development in the pandemic in Australia. I've linked to the latest one, but it might only be funny to you if you are in Australia!
And... I know this comes from a place of privilege, but I'm sort of enjoying the break from life that the lockdown forces on us. No running around to swimming, soccer, and gymnastics lessons, no pressure to meet up with friends all weekend, no rushing around in the morning to leave for work by 7:15am and then scrambling to make dinner in the evening after a long day for everyone. I jokingly said to my Year 11s in class on Friday (our first in-person lesson) that maybe we should have a week of online lessons once a semester, just to give everyone a little break, and I was surprised that they all agreed. No one wants a long term lockdown, but it is nice to just pause the busyness of life once in a while.
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