This wasn't how year 12 was supposed to end for Rosie Yates. There was no sports carnival, no valedictory assembly, no end-of-year dinner and no sitting around with friends to plan trips overseas or gap years around Australia.

"It's very different to what I imagined," she tells AFR Weekend from Melbourne, where she is finishing her Victorian Certificate of Education exams. "International travel is off the table, working overseas or going to uni overseas is off the table. It's so unexpected. The world is our oyster, but not for 2021."