Postcard from Sydney: Sydney’s Delta Winter

By Jodie Brough

Sydney has been back in lockdown in response to an outbreak of the Delta variant since 26 June and this is now extended until August.

It has been something of a shock to the system for the Emerald City, where life had increasingly returned to its normal sun-drenched complacency in recent months. Business was back, the city was busy, the beaches were crowded with people enjoying a mild winter.

Today’s news from New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian is in fact better, with the number of community cases detected, 65, dropping from highs around 100 earlier in the week. Yes, you read that number right – 65 not 65,000. But the recriminations here that there is a single Delta case are quite extraordinary. It reflects just how far from the global mean Australia’s COVID experience has been.

Since Delta hit Sydney, our relentlessly myopic and trivial political/media culture has second-guessed with gusto and mock outrage over whether we should have locked down faster, still not be locking down now and all fence-sitting points in between. The Premier will end the lockdown if we get “close to zero” – a controversial idea among those who say vociferously the number should be zero and anything else is recklessness.

It is disappointing to report that after last year’s national unity, the various federal and state governments have responded to Delta with partisan finger-pointing over who has and hasn’t managed pandemic control well. Their schadenfreude just invites the mischief of the gods. As we speak, Delta is getting a toe-hold outside NSW and further outbreaks seem inevitable given how contagious it is.

There is, however, a silver lining: Sydney’s Delta winter has snapped our complacency about securing vaccine supply and getting vaccinated. Australia lagging the world vaccination league tables has caused embarrassment. A depressing national conversation thread in which Astra Zeneca was foolishly positioned as second best is over. People are finally being encouraged to get jabbed or to bring their second shot forward.

So, after a sequestered month in the World Heritage Blue Mountains, my only companions being the greedy but cute galahs and cockatoos that rock up for a feed every afternoon, I am breaking out and getting AZ Jab 2 in Sydney on Saturday. Wish me luck – I hear Jab 2 can have a kicker.