As of the 4th of August 2020, there are a total of 11,937 coronavirus cases in Victoria. Victoria has just copped a Stage 4 lockdown from Dan Andrews in an attempt to slow the spread, which means that citizens are having to abide by restrictions and stay at home.
As Trump weighs in on the coronavirus cases in Melbourne and the rest of Australia watches on, those stuck in lockdown are becoming increasingly frustrated with the situation. We spoke to some people stuck in Melbourne who are being directly impacted by this second wave to get their thoughts on what it’s like to experience this first-hand.
Check out our conversations with these Melbournians on this episode of It’s Been A Big Day For…
We spoke to Jacob, who is originally from Wollongong and is now living in Melbourne with his boyfriend, about how the restrictions have affected him and his family. “The issue is, my stepdad passed away in September last year. Since then, I’ve been going up every month or every other month just to check on my mum,” Jacob said. But as a result of the lockdown, he isn’t able to visit home, even after applying for a permit. “ I applied for a carers permit to get home but that got rejected today,” Jacob said before sarcastically adding, “That felt really good.”
We also spoke to Tayla and Tash who are housemates in Melbourne who both happen to work in the same childcare centre. We asked them about how they’re experiencing lockdown as people in that industry, “(It’s) a bit of a mental head-f**k. It just feels like the government hasn’t really considered childcare in the lockdown. It’s a very grey area, they’ve just said ‘essential workers’ but they haven’t actually defined what an essential worker is,” Tayla and Tash both said on the lockdown in Victoria.
“We had so many children in the centre today, I don’t know if that’s because parents are worried… There’s just so many loopholes because, at the moment, our state government is talking in circles.”
Workers aside, we caught up with Ruth, a student who is struggling at university because she hasn’t got the ability to study on campus. As someone who prefers working and learning on campus, Ruth hasn’t completely adjusted to this ‘new normal’. Ruth said, “I have mixed emotions. At the start, I was doing okay. But, I didn’t expect it to go for this long. I feel like mentally, I’m a bit all over the place. Yeah, not doing that great.”
Finally, we caught up with Ash, someone who – despite working two jobs – doesn’t have any job security with these new restrictions. “I potentially have just lost my job, so I’m a little bit stressed out,” Ash said before adding, “I know that there’s nothing that can be done, I’m just going to have to ride with it.”
Ash works at Bunnings Warehouse and given everything that’s been going on with Karens invading that space, we had to gauge Ash’s response. “We all wanna go and do things Karen, I totally understand but you can wear a mask, it doesn’t affect your oxygen, I can link you the videos to show you that. I don’t know what else you want me to do.”
For more personal stories based on the lockdown situation (but are outside of Victoria), one of our staff members, Steph Nuzzo, wrote about her experience of the lockdown in New York City here.
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