The reality of Christmas Day in Qld amid COVID-19
For thousands of Queenslanders it was a Christmas unlike any other, as COVID curbed festivities.
QLD News
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It was Christmas - but not quite as we know it - as COVID curbed festivities for thousands of Queenslanders yesterday.
While many celebrated with seafood and a sun-soaked day at the beach, the pandemic - which first surfaced in China more than a year ago - emerged as the Christmas Grinch for countless others.
Families separated by Queensland’s sudden border closure this week were unable to celebrate together, and more than 4700 people spent Christmas Day in hotel and home quarantine.
Those crossing the border for Christmas lunch with loved ones were stopped at police checkpoints.
Hand sanitiser was offered before holy water at pre-booked church services and ‘peace be with you’ wishes were exchanged via elbow bumps.
Battlers had to scan QR codes to allow them to attend charity Christmas lunches.
Police and State Emergency Service volunteers who had been looking forward to Christmas with their families after eight long and arduous months of border duty found themselves back on the checkpoints yesterday.
Their hopes of a semi-normal Christmas were dashed when Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk slammed shut the border on Tuesday after the alarming COVID-19 outbreak on Sydney’s northern beaches.
But in stark contrast to earlier this week when police copped abuse from frustrated motorists caught in two-hour traffic snarls, there was no shortage of Christmas cheer at the checkpoints yesterday.
Drivers handed officers gifts including chocolates and even a pavlova as they passed through the three checkpoints on the M1, Gold Coast Highway at Bilinga and Griffith St at Coolangatta.
“The community today is in really good spirits,” Gold Coast police Chief Superintendent Mark Wheeler said.
“The main networks into Queensland are flowing exceptionally well - there are no delays on the M1 or the Gold Coast Highway - and we’ve only seen a very small handful of turnarounds (of people from the Greater Sydney hotspot).
“We think that a lot of people did their travelling yesterday and the day before.”
Supt Wheeler revealed that Christmas celebrations had been cut short for a Sydney man who allegedly tried to sneak into the state by falsely claiming he was a Queenslander.
The 37-year-old was kicked out of Queensland and fined $4003 after it was discovered he had filled out two border declarations - one with his parents’ Gold Coast address and the other for his real residence in Rose Bay.
“Unfortunately that man had no actual right to be in Queensland at that time and he did give false information on the border pass,” Supt Wheeler said.
He said 190 vehicles containing 420 people suspected as being from Greater Sydney were turned away at the border so far.
Although traffic was light yesterday, Supt Wheeler warned it was likely to increase today and into the long weekend as more holidaymakers hit the road.
About 2600 people spent Christmas in hotel quarantine, including one family who could almost see their Brisbane home from their lockdown room.
Lara and Michael Anderson were ordered into quarantine with their two-year-old daughter Maxie after a flight delay stranded them in Newcastle.
After days in the Mantra on Edward, including all of Christmas Eve and most of Christmas Day, Queensland Health yesterday granted the family an exemption, instead allowing them to quarantine at home by mid-afternoon.
Glaswegians Claire and Bry Murrell knew their first Queensland Christmas would be very different but perhaps not this unique
The family of four including Harry, 3, and Millie, 6, also spent yesterday quarantined in the Mantra on Edward in Brisbane CBD.
“It’s been fantastic to be honest, it’s not what we’d usually do, but the hotel has been so good they’ve bought presents for the children,” Mrs Murrell told the Courier Mail.
A local friend delivered them a Christmas tree and after reaching out on social media they secured a proper festive dinner.
Coopers Snackbox, which serves up classic British fare, not only cooked a turkey for the Murrells but delivered it as well.
“It was absolutely fantastic, we’re really overwhelmed that they did it,” she said.
The Murrells were meant to fly from Scotland in April, after Bry secured work in Queensland, but this was postponed until this month.
They flew out earlier this week leaving a country devastated by the pandemic.
“ It’s another reason we’re feeling thankful to be here. There’s just so much going on in the UK, very negative at the minute,” Mrs Murrell, said.
Christmas church services also had to adjust to the ‘new normal’ of COVID.
At Brisbane’s St Stephen’s Cathedral, worshippers had to pre-book a pew, offered sanitiser and gloves before the service and encouraged to offer signs of peace via nods, waves or elbow bumps instead of the normal handshake.
The Christmas congregation was half the normal 1350-strong crowd but Archbishop Mark Coleridge said the ability to offer an actual rather than a virtual service was ‘hugely important and energising’.
“I was literally celebrating mass within an empty cathedral (earlier this year), and that felt weird,” he said.
“It’s been messy, but just to be with the crowd is hugely important and energising for us”
“People are looking for something at the end of this gruelling year, they’re battered, they’re weary and they’re looking for something that they’ve earned, that’s what we celebrate at Christmas.”
On the Gold Coast, Santa swapped his sleigh for a beach buggy to pay a visit to Coolangatta Beach, to the delight of families including Kirra locals the Whipps - mum and dad Martin and Zoe and children Olivia, 11, Riley, 8, and baby Luka.
But even their idyllic Christmas Day at the beach was tinged with sadness.
“All our family’s down in Newcastle - Riley said on the way here that it doesn’t really feel like Christmas,” Mrs Whipp said.
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