Hey Boomers. It’s here! Learning to live with active Covid-19 infections in the community is not something on the horizon for us to worry about later. It has arrived, and possibly sooner than many of us would have wanted, but here we are. We are learning to live with it today. And this is very good news indeed.

Sadly, many of us across the country are in lockdown. Lots of us in the state of New South Wales (NSW), home to Australia’s most populous city, Sydney, are about to start our third month isolated from several of life’s loves and pleasures. The good news may seem hard to find, but it is all around us in conversations and in actions. And while it may be too soon to dust down our disco shorts or to order our disco biscuits, the exit out of lockdown is fast approaching.

Lockdowns may have been a necessary evil, but their days are numbered.

The idea that Covid-19 can be brought to heel through ongoing lockdowns and social control is poor politics dressed up as public health policy. Yes, social distancing, good hygiene and the wearing of masks in at-risk-settings will be with us for some time and that is a good thing. But, sending in the police to bust up a family gathering or to fine people for sitting on a beach, is not. This chapter in our Covid-19 response, is rapidly coming to an end and whether we like it or not, NSW is leading the charge.

It is time to end the clarion call of ‘go early, go hard’.

People have been banging on about the need to ‘go early, go hard’ since the get go! Thankfully, NSW had ignored this call and we have been spared the endless lockdowns used elsewhere. The NSW strategy has relied on investing in the health system, testing, contact tracing and quarantining. It had worked a treat up until this current outbreak. This begs the question: if NSW could successfully contain pre-Delta outbreaks, where was the demonstrated need in other jurisdictions to ‘go early, go hard’?

Putting aside the question of whether NSW or other jurisdictions should have adopted a ‘go early, go hard’ strategy, the evidence was clear that the Delta variant of Covid-19 was much more infectious. It was so infectious in fact that we as a nation happily denied our fellow citizens and permanent residents their right to return to Australia. Despite this awareness, NSW decided to pursue its proven strategy apparently oblivious to the additional risks posed by Delta. The mistake was repeated a second time by not applying a different approach to stopping the virus from leap-frogging into rural and isolated cities and towns, which is creating a crisis for many Aboriginal communities.

The Aboriginal population of many of these towns can be as high as 50 per cent (compared with Aboriginal people being just over 3 per cent of the total NSW population). A great source of information about indigenous issues in NSW is the Koori Mail.

Not adapting to changing circumstances is not just a failing of NSW.

Down south, the Premier of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, (also known unkindly as Dictator Dan), is using his old toolbox to fight the new variant. Melbournians are in their sixth lockdown, covering more than 200 days, since the onset of the pandemic, which is more than six months! While Victoria may have better luck than NSW in stopping the daily escalation in cases, it is proving to be a challenge. But there is nothing new about the response. Same old, same old, as they say.

Plagues and fetishes.

Remember the 1918 influenza (incorrectly named the ‘Spanish Flu’ as it originated in the USA)? Ever since 1918, this persistent bug has mutated and evolved to survive. It has killed more people than the 14th century’s Black Plague with more than 50 million casualties world-wide. Your last bout of the flu was most probably a variant of it. No doubt children of today will be having ongoing bouts of Covid-19 in adulthood.

My favourite read for the week comes from journalist, Chris Uhlmann, who penned a provocative piece in the SMH: “Some lockdown fetishists appear to be planning to make shutdowns a lifestyle.” He went on to suggest that: “There are sage warnings from “experts” not to pin our hopes of liberation on high rates of vaccination, for their perfect future to be realised restrictions must be as endemic as the disease.” More: “If this group of first ministers and their medical advisers had been running the response to the 1666 plague, a genuinely terrifying disease, it’s a fair bet that we would still be bouncing in and out of lockdown.”

Disturbingly, Boomers appear to be the most vocal lockdown fetishists. We can only be grateful they were more libertarian and anti-authoritarian in their youth. If not, could you imagine the response to HIV/AIDS? Oxford Street would have been converted into lockdown central and we would have been belled like proverbial cats to prevent straying and other unsafe behaviours. Thankfully, these pre-Boomers successfully campaigned against the closure of sex on premises venues, opposed proposed draconian laws and kept human rights at the core of the response. Such voices and activism have been sorely missed in the current crisis.

A uniquely NSW response to Covid-19.

The response of NSW Health and the NSW government overall has been far from perfect but more competent than most comparable jurisdictions locally and abroad. The Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, may be guilty of numerous crimes, but her handling of the Covid-19 response is not one of them. She has been relentless in her efforts to allow people maximum freedoms while ensuring that NSW Health had sufficient resources to keep the virus at bay. Now she is being equally relentless in her efforts to change the conversation about how to best manage the current Covid-19 outbreak in a population increasingly being vaccinated. She wants the focus to be on learning to live with the virus right now. As she keeps saying, we are doing this sooner than we would have liked but that is the new reality. But Delta is unlikely to be defeated. The path to living with the virus is a population fully vaccinated, with tighter restrictions being only pitstops along the way.

NSW and the Doherty Report.

There is a lot of noise out there about NSW opening up too early and going against the recommendations of the Doherty report, which provides the ‘roadmap’ for the national plan for meeting the challenge of Covid-19 infections in the community, once certain vaccination targets have been reached. However, these two issues are not comparable. The Doherty report is concerned about macro level issues of States/Territories opening up to each other and Australia opening up to the world. The issue in NSW is about how to lift some restrictions in a population with high vaccination rates. It is not about lifting all restrictions, all together.

For example, in NSW the challenge being considered is: in a community with no or few cases of Covid-19 and high vaccination rates, where can life return to some sense of normality? This is no a theoretical or heretical question. The construction sector is one area where vaccinated workers are allowed to return to work. Similarly, vaccinated ‘tradies’ can continue to work subject to certain restrictions, such as having a Covid-19 test every three days. As well, high school students from communities with high infection rates are being offered vaccinations so that they can return to school and prepare for their HSC examinations.

In what other ways can restrictions be lifted safely?

Frankly, I would like to nominate my local pub. It sits within a community with virtually no Covid-19 cases and relatively high vaccination rates. If the pub can trade safely i.e., fully vaccinated staff serving fully vaccinated customers, there should not be a problem so long as it can be done safely and monitored to ensure compliance. The same goes for the local hairdresser, baker, butcher and candle-stick maker.

Investing in vaccinations.

NSW is not only changing the conversation about how to manage Covid-19 in the community, but also its response. It has ramped up the availability of vaccination sites in the most affected communities. Greater Sydney's worst hit Covid-19 hotspots are closing the gap on NSW's highest vaccine rates. State-wide, more than 60 per cent of us over 16 have had the first jab. This will increase to 70 per cent in about 10 days and to 80 per cent about 10 days after that. So long as the momentum for vaccinations continues in the same direction, we should hit the first vaccination ‘sweet spot’ of 50 per cent of the eligible population fully vaccinated by the end of September.

Opening to the world will mean more Covid-19 in the community.

There is no evidence that Delta is retreating globally or that a less infectious variant will replace it. This means that when we start opening up our international borders, Delta or a more infectious variant will certainly arrive. The idea that opening up to the world was contingent on there being no or low infections in the community has always been misplaced.

The exit route is within sight.

While it may be too soon to dust down our disco shorts or to order our disco biscuits, the exit route out of lockdown is fast approaching. It is more vaccinations, sensible targeted public health measures to protect the vulnerable and greater freedoms, not less.

Lockdown fetishists, disco fever, and learning to live with Covid-19 today.