The great Karen crack-up

So much for being all in this together. But before we are too hard on the Karens out there, let’s also remember that their selfishness is the tip of a very deep iceberg

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As “Bunnings Karen” and her coterie continue to obstruct and offend ordinary Australians, it’s clear that, along with coronavirus, we are deep in the grips of what can only be called the Me Me Me Pandemic.

Every society, even ours steeped in mateship and “she’ll be right” sentiment, has its selfish element.

But if we are to face facts, our singsong repetition of “We’re All In This Together” is really a scrape of filler smoothing over the cracks of what many of us think about each other.

Most prominently these days is the “it’s all about me”, said by the fool who won’t wear a mask and won’t care if they infect a vulnerable person.

Kerry Nash, who became known as "Bunnings Karen" after her anti-mask rant there went viral. Picture: Supplied

And thus now we seem to be fighting not only the enemy of a deadly disease that has infiltrated our communities, but we are turning on each other in epic proportions.

This new epidemic of egomania threatens to derail the world-leading example Australians have set in our response to COVID-19.

In the early bewildering days, we squared our shoulders, swallowed the bitter pills that came with lockdown and isolation, and were rewarded with some of the lowest case numbers and death tolls seen anywhere in the world.

Now we enter act two and some Australians seem no longer ready or willing to answer the call to arms.

Instead, thanks to a toxic combination of boredom and stress, too many of us have adopted complacency and selfishness as our ­weapons of choice.

You only need to look at the case currently playing out in Queensland, involving two young women who are being investigated for allegedly dodging quarantine after returning from Melbourne infected with coronavirus.

The Thai Rock restaurant in Potts Point has been infected by COVID-19. Picture: Jenny Evans/Getty Images

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While these 19-year-olds are being treated in hospital, police are investigating allegations they lied on their border declaration forms when they returned from Melbourne last week on a flight via Sydney.

For eight days they would have put others at risk, potentially spreading the virus at shopping centres, restaurants, a school and a church.

All of these venues have to be shut now so authorities can undertake contact tracing.

How many people will be forced to isolate because of the brainless actions of two Australians?

If the allegations are true, they won’t be able to claim ignorance.

And how you behave in a pandemic is an acute test of character.

Many of us are wondering whether to mix with our families at this time. Picture: Jenny Evans/Getty Images

Many of us, myself included, have conflicted moral priorities around our families. Do we support our ­elderly parents — and the older among us are mired in their own epidemic of loneliness — or is that simply risking infection?

But this selfishness should not be surprising. It’s been a festering problem in our society since long before COVID-19.

We saw this very quickly in the early days of the pandemic, where those with secure — often government — jobs called for ever-tougher, economy-crippling restrictions, comforted in the notion that they could always Zoom into important meetings while checking on their sourdough starters.

The queues outside Centrelink offices around the country were alarming. Picture Glenn Hampson

They did this at the very same time as younger, casualised workers in industries like hospitality bore the brunt, with lines snaking out of ­Centrelink offices like something from an old movie set in the Great Depression.

And the Productivity Commission has released a devastating report ­suggesting gen Zs and millenials, let down by the gig economy and a failing education system, may wind up being “Generation Broke”.

All in this together?

We haven’t been for some time.

So when we see various “Karens” coming out of the woodwork, it’s alarming — but not surprising.

Bunnings Karen arguing with the police.

We’ve almost become a victim of our own success, and instead of holding the line, we are crossing it.

COVID-19 hasn’t gone away.

We haven’t beaten it into submission. Not by a long shot.

You only need to look at the number of new cases that have come out of one state alone in the past week.

It doesn’t matter which state it is because it could just as easily have been any state or territory in the nation.

Because for too many of us, COVID has become an inconvenience. It interferes with our lives in ways we never thought possible. It has stopped us from doing so many of the things we feel are our right.

No one close to me has lost their life to COVID, or a COVID-related illness, but as each day passes and I see the level of selfishness rise in my neighbourhood, on the footpaths and in my city, my blood runs a ­little colder.

A notice on the property of Kerry Nash. Picture: Wayne Taylor

Because I now fear that more than I ever did.

The fact is, selfishness will kill us all.

But make no mistake, it is no longer the virus I fear the most, it’s the people who have lost sight of their fellow Aussies in their myopic view of their world.

For them, life is all ‘me me me’.