‘Our LGA has been smashed’: Light at the end of Covid tunnel for Fairfield

Fairfield in Sydney’s west was Australia’s worst hit suburb during the spread of the Delta strain - but now it’s poised to bounce back after months of Covid horror.

For a time in the Delta outbreak, Western Sydney’s Fairfield was the country’s epicentre for the virus and the pain it wreaks.

It had state-topping numbers of Covid cases for most of July. The strictest lockdown the state has ever seen fell early and fell hard on the people of Fairfield, many of them essential workers.

But now the suburb is ready to bounce back.

Last week the Fairfield local government area hit 60.7 per cent for double-dose Covid vaccinations, while its single dose figure of 88 per cent is soaring higher than Randwick (76.3 per cent), City of Sydney (69.5) and the Inner West (79.4).

Jenny Dinh, the co-owner of Fairfield institution Fat Panda. She's looking forward to a return to normal soon. Picture: Tim Pascoe

Many businesses are now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel after 100 days in strict lockdown.

Jenny Dinh, co-owner of Canley Heights institution Fat Panda, said the last four months were the hardest in her restaurant’s 13-year history. “This one was really hard. There were so many hurdles to jump,” she said.

“Business definitely slowed – it was different to last lockdown because this time we had a 5km radius and we’ve learnt a lot of our customers come from really far out, so they couldn’t come in.”

After Fairfield was deemed an LGA of concern, she said “a lot of our suppliers were saying we won’t deliver to your area anymore”.

But she is confident her business, like others in Fairfield, is set to bounce back as restrictions are relaxed from October 11.

“It’s nice to see the finish line,” she said. “We can start planning, get staff back on board, retrain, new strategy to get people to dine in.”

While she called it “another stepping stone back to normality”, she did fear how businesses would implement government restrictions including only allowing double-vaxxed customers to dine in.

“I don’t want to have that confrontation. I don’t know how to handle it,” she said.

Not far away from Fat Panda is Carter & G’s cafe, one of the few businesses permitted to stay open during the day as a night-time curfew gripped the suburb. Owner Suchada Sae-Lee said the area had been “smashed”.

An empty Fairfield city centre during lockdown last month. Picture: Damian Shaw

“We’re all locked in, we can’t do anything, we can’t go anywhere. You can just see it in people – they’re just depressed,” she said.

She said a pay-it-forward scheme – where customers chipped in extra so frontline workers could get a free coffee – epitomised the spirit of the suburb.

“It’s been so good – it really restored my faith in humanity for people to be able to dig deep in these hard times. A lot of people have been unemployed and for them to donate has been amazing,” she said.