I’m stressed as hell. With those words Western Sydney man Jim Muscat captures what it means to live in the suburbs in Sydney’s west and southwest right now, doing it tough during the city’s second lockdown. As he stabs at his vegetarian pie while sitting in the back of a fire engine red vintage Dodge, Mr Muscat muses over missing his family - all cruelly separated by the hard lockdown orders in eight local government areas.

His wife Victoria has dementia and he cannot visit her inside the Kings Langley aged care home she calls home.

Nor can he visit his two adult children and grandchildren.

“Usually I’m there for dinner every so often with them or the other one and it’s not happening any more,’’ he said.

“It’s a bit annoying but that’s what we have.”

Mr Muscat is in a situation like so many across Fairfield, Liverpool, Campbelltown, Canterbury-Bankstown, Georges Hall, Cumberland, Parramatta and Blacktown. All under strict health orders to stay at home while the highly-contagious Delta strain leaves its mark.

NSW is recording around 200 Covid cases a day with most recorded in the west and southwest. Data now reveals vaccination rates here among the lowest in the state.

But this lockdown has proven a city’s reliance on Western Sydney to keep it running.

One in 11 Australians live in Greater Western Sydney. When hard lockdown arrived with a thud, staying home was not an option for the 11.6 per cent of the region’s residents who are health and aged care workers and the 10.2 per cent that work in retail.

Away from their jobs, western Sydney is synonymous with being the nation’s melting pot. 35 per cent of the region’s residents were born overseas and they hail from 170 nations, speaking more than 100 languages.

In the Cumberland area alone, more than half of the 240,000 people who live there were born overseas, with more than 65 per cent of residents able to speak a language other than English.

Meet the people beyond the headlines, taking each day as it comes on the Covid frontline.

Steven Jones, St Patrick’s Primary School principal Guildford

Steven Jones is passionate about fast-tracking vaccinations for the 50 staff educating 400 students at the Guildford school.

Mr Jones is on the Principals’ Association Executive of the Parramatta Diocese, which recently wrote to Premier Gladys Berejiklian calling for all staff to be recognised as frontline workers and prioritised for vaccines.

“I think teachers, absolutely, but all school staff should be considered frontline workers,’’ Mr Jones said.

“They come across all members of the community on a regular daily basis. It’s seen students can transfer this Delta strain and that’s my real consideration; making sure staff are safe but also students and the family.

“We still have some students coming to school because their parents are essential workers and we’ve got families who are authorised workers to go out within the LGA,’’ he said.

“I have families that are understandably worried about it and I’ve got families who are also managing their businesses and their financial concerns as well as supporting their children in homes.

“The schools are the microcosm of the rest of society so it’s very much about balancing it all and supporting the point at where they’re at.’’

Najara Ortiz, 28, and Pablo Esparza, 34, Chilean couple living in Liverpool

Najara Ortiz and Pablo Esparza hold hands as they walk through Liverpool city centre, stopping to kiss over their face masks.

The couple, who moved from Chile to Australia three years ago to study English, are both out of work due to Covid lockdown.

Ms Ortiz, 28, worked as a cleaner, and Mr Esparza, 34, was employed as a scaffolder.

He said he hasn’t worked for three weeks, and probably won’t be able to work for another four weeks.

But he said the pair, who live together in Liverpool, are managing.

Mohamad Hamdan, 32, of Homebush Abdow Brothers Bakery owner

In a small court tucked back from Guildford Rd, hundreds of slices of freshly-baked Lebanese bread are creased into clear plastic bags at Abdow Brothers Bakery. Their goods have filled tables across the community for three decades.

Mohamad Hamdan bought the shop just before lockdown 2.0 after his work as a security officer in the city dried up.

“I bought it because I thought Covid wouldn’t affect bread,’’ he said.

But now, when hard lockdowns halted customers travelling from Blacktown and beyond Cumberland, business has plunged.

“Our business is about 60 per cent down,’’ he said.

“When they first announced the lockdown (it was OK) but when they announced it for the Cumberland (area), that killed off our business.”

Mona Alkhoury, 66, of South Wentworthville, St Anthony’s Pharmacy Guildford pharmacy assistant

As she talks behind the plastic screening at St Anthony’s Pharmacy, chemist assistant Mona Alkhoury’s message is clear.

She wants workers such as herself to be given priority when it comes to getting the jab.

“The ones in Woolworths, they don’t face the ones we face,’’ she said.

“What about pharmacy workers? Most of the time our customers are sick. I’ve been a pharmacy assistant for many years and we’re working day and night.’’

Rodney Dombrowski, 54, of Pendle Hill, Pendle Hill Meat Market butcher

Like many of his workmates, veteran butcher Rodney Dombrowski is working through lockdown 2.0, preoccupied with pushing the 500 pig carcasses out of the trucks and into the coolroom at the meat market.

There are 200 lambs and 45 “beef bodies” dispatched from the butcher’s Picton abattoir to the meat market, which is a key supplier of meat throughout the Parramatta council area, which, on Wednesday, joined neighbouring Cumberland to go into hard lockdown.

While Mr Dombrowski works in the suburb he lives in, and workers are exempt to attend work outside their local government areas, lockdown rules mean many cannot carpool.

John, 37, and Emily, 35, of Westmead and baby Ethan.

Emily and John are walking back to their Westmead apartment complex before she receives her second Pfizer jab at the nearby Westmead Hospital that afternoon.

The pair are on a stroll back from Coles with their three-month old son Ethan

John, a software developer, will complete his vaccination next month. Emily, an accountant on maternity leave, says life in their apartment community has changed with children no longer playing outside and picnic tables taped off.

“You’re always kind of worried when you go out and it’s hard being stuck at home,’’ Emily, who declined to give her surname, said.

“Normally being a new mum you have support with mothers’ group and activities but you can’t do that. I try to connect to online groups just to keep a bit sane.’’

Neeraj Srivastiva, owns Udaya Textiles, Udaya Supermarket and Udaya Spices at Station St Wentworthville

You would think owning multiple businesses would give you financial security but not so for owner Neeraj Srivastiva who runs three businesses alongside each other on Wentworthville’s main street.

Fortunately the supermarket is considered an essential service but business is not booming and compounded by the fact Wentworthville is in the Covid-ravaged Cumberland LGA.

“It’s very quiet,’’ Mr Srivastiva said.

Seenthaai Govindaraj, 36, Wentworthville, machine operator

Seenthaai Govindaraj has called Cumberland home since he migrated to India on a work visa just before the pandemic hit.

Since the Delta strain outbreak, his shifts as a machine operator have been cut from 40 to 24 hours a week and with the virus spreading through workplaces, plus the suspension of construction, he is vigilant and undertakes testing every three days.

Sam Shamoun, 56, on his daily walk

Every morning during lockdown, Sam Shamoun walks the route from his home in Yennora to Fairfield.

On this day, decked in Australia-printed clothing, he picks up some medicine from the pharmacy.

After living in Australia for 24 years, he still wears the pride of the country on his sleeve.

He is a full-time carer for his wife who has depression and swelling in her legs.

Not too much has changed for Mr Shamoun during Covid lockdown, except that his 15-year-old son is studying from their two-bedroom home.

He said he didn’t mind everyone being home together during lockdown.

“Everything is good,” he said.

Evan Alhamal, 38, owner of Baghdeda Bakery in Fairfield

It has been a longtime dream for Evan Alhamal to open his own bakery.

He had worked in his father’s bakery in Iraq for many years and had been employed at others after he moved to Australia in 2016.

Finally on June 1 this year, he opened Baghdeda Bakery “in the heart of Fairfield”.

He named it after the village in Iraq where he and his wife are from - a village that was attacked by ISIS in 2014, prompting them to relocate.

Mr Alhamal said the first month of business was incredible.

“It was very beautiful because there were so many customers. People would come every day. We made many products and we sold everything quickly,” he said.

“It was very happy for us because we didn’t think it would be like that … We had four people working with me.”

But then Covid lockdown hit.

“Now it’s only me and my wife. In the first month, we would use two bags of flour every day. Now we use half a bag,” he said.

His wife Leza Jabbo added: “Now, it’s very hard… I am sending kids to childcare, preschool and the other to school. We need to afford rent and these things.

“What we are earning, it’s not much. But we are earning new customers every day. We introduce ourselves to them, and they keep coming to the shop. That’s the aim at the moment.

“It’s hard when we make things and there’s no people to buy it… But so far it’s good and our health is good. And that’s enough for us.”

Still, the couple give away yesterday’s bread to customers for free.

Quang Nguyen, 75, retired Cabramatta gardener

A street back from the busy Cabramatta Plaza, Quang Nguyen appears content and proud, watering the plants out the front of his apartment block.

When asked how he was coping with lockdown, Mr Nguyen, 75, retired, says: “I stay at home, cooking and cleaning and watering my plants”.

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Southwest Sydney’s faces of lockdown in photos

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