Caleb Bond: Victoria can’t let post-lockdown rules stop us getting back to normal life

While measures such as rapid Covid tests have their place, if we need one daily, the return to normal life will be slow and arduous.

Will we ever accept that Covid-19 is a fact of life?

Premiers are blatantly ignoring the national plan to reopen – continually moving the goalposts and making us wait longer to return to whatever watered down version of life they deem “normal”.

Now we are set to roll out rapid antigen testing, which can return a result in less than half an hour.

Such tests certainly have their place in some circumstances. Nursing home residents, even if fully vaccinated, are more likely to suffer severe complications from infection, and so it is fair to require visitors to test negative.

A rapid antigen testing kit. Picture: Tim Hunter

But I fear rapid tests will then become a part of everyday life – a requirement to go to work or the supermarket – and those who test positive will be forced into 14 days of quarantine.

If that were to happen, what would be the point of being vaccinated?

We already have vaccine passports. Next we could have testing passports.

I have been vaccinated because I want to reduce my chance of catching Covid and passing it on to someone else.

As a young person, my chances of suffering serious consequences from the virus were already extremely low.

Vaccination will lower that further.

But if fully vaccinated people are still required to lock themselves up for 14 days after we “open up”, whatever that might look like, then will we have really opened up?

Case numbers will almost certainly increase when we can go back to pubs and shops.

It is common courtesy to endeavour not to spread viruses to others when you have them – be it the common cold or the flu.

Melburnians are craving a return to normal social activities. Picture: David Crosling

But we don’t mandate police-monitored quarantine for people who catch the flu, which is basically what the vaccine will turn Covid-19 into.

The vaccine is not a silver bullet but with the vast majority of us vaccinated, higher case numbers should not result in a massive health system blowout.

It is feasible that most of us will catch Covid-19 one day – some multiple times. Will we have to live our lives constantly in and out of quarantine?

If people have to be locked up at home or in a hotel even after they have been fully vaccinated, they will fairly expect to be compensated for lost income.

I doubt state and federal governments want to continue stumping up.

We need real hope that life will go back to normal, not just pieces of our former lives.

Originally published as Caleb Bond: Victoria can’t let post-lockdown rules stop us getting back to normal life