COVID-19: Sydney lockdown extended to 30 July

This comes as no surprise. The lockdown has already robbed me of my trip to New Zealand, and it looks like it will also cause me to cancel a replacement trip to Byron Bay. Oh well.

Gladys-Beryl Jiklian, our premier, announced the 2 week extension this morning.

Given that the daily infection numbers continue to be heading in the wrong direction, it was fairly easy to see this coming.

According to today’s news conference, people in the Fairfield local government district, where the outbreak is currently centred, have started taking the lockdown seriously, and have dramatically reduced their movements in, out and around the council district. That’s a good thing, and will help reduce the spread.

2PAXfly Takeout

This is another timely reminder to wear your seatbelt when seated. Holding you close to your seat will protect you from the sort of injuries sustained on this flight, when unsecured passengers flew to the ceiling of the aircraft, and then came crashing down once the ‘drop’ ceased.

The hope will be that this is an anomaly – a ‘freak accident’ in casual parlance. If it is a systemic error either mechanical or electronic, then this is a larger concern for the airlines that fly Boeing Dreamliner 787 aircraft. Let’s hope it isn’t. If it is, it will pile on the woes to Boeing’s existing stack.

I’m pretty comfortable with my own company, and that of my husband, so another 2 weeks in isolation is OK by me. I have a study to clean out, tax to do, novels to read, and endless TV series to fast forward through. I’m also back studying for my master’s degree in August.

If this is the price I have to pay for the months of ‘normal’ life we have had, eating in restaurants, meeting friends, going to the theatre and concerts, and travelling interstate, then I’m fine with that.

As far as international travel goes. I’m not even interested in going to a country like the United Kingdom, where Boris is proclaiming ‘Freedom Day’, which is looking very much like ‘freedom to catch the Delta strain day’. Mind you, I have not had to live through the dog’s breakfast of the UK’s COVID strategy, resulting in months-long lockdowns. So maybe I should keep my trap shut on that matter.

Despite the ineptitude of our Australian federal government’s running of the whole vaccination process, that level of incompetence pales into insignificance compared to the mismanagement by Britain’s L’Homme de Paille.