What happened to living with the virus?

Slamming state borders closed at every COVID-19 outbreak shows Australia hasn’t learned to live with coronavirus.

About a week ago I saw my parents and elderly grandparents for the first time since January.

Separated by multiple state border closures, 2020 hasn’t been easy for our close-knit, but geographically sprawled out, family.

So the day NSW borders opened to Tasmania, I was on a plane to Launceston.

My grandparents were waiting in the terminal when I touched down and fortunately my reunion wasn’t derailed by a sudden cluster of cases in the state I’d just travelled from.

A very different story to what those travelling from South Australia have just experienced.

Within a few hours of SA confirming its COVID-19 cluster had ballooned to 17 cases, Tasmania closed its borders to the infectious state.

Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein closed his state’s borders to SA on Monday. Picture: Richard Jupe

Western Australia had already slammed shut overnight, and by midmorning Queensland and the Northern Territory had followed suit.

Before long, reports emerged of distraught passengers crying and in shock after landing in WA from SA, only to be told they must isolate for two weeks or go back.

I can only imagine how it feels to have long-awaited reunion plans dashed in an instant.

Proponents of hard borders argue to stay open is to risk lives, but the dilemma has never been that binary.

Those living in locked down states with economies cushioned by government supports like JobKeeper and blissfully happy under a false sense of security hard borders will help are missing the fact this needn’t be an either-or proposition.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced NSW would not close to SA, but anyone who travelled from the state with symptoms was told to get a COVID-19 test immediately. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

Australia never pursued eradication of COVID-19 – to do so thoroughly would effectively require banning our own citizens who are overseas from returning.

There are more than 35,000 Australians who have registered to come home from abroad as of August. That’s a lot of people to sacrifice to be able to stand up in a pub with a beer.

State leaders who have enforced hard borders, and are beloved by the majority of their constituents for doing so, often conveniently avoid this point.

But as NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said in response to the SA outbreak, states do actually have the power and resources to deal with cases that come their way.

It’s not shut border or do nothing. There are plenty of measures – localised shutdowns, venue restrictions, rapid tracing, mass testing and mask wearing – that can be taken instead.

After the major outbreak in Victoria linked to hotel quarantine, smaller contained leaks from hotels in Sydney, and now this outbreak in Adelaide. It’s clear vigilance is critical to keep the virus contained in these high risk facilities.

SA Health has launched a major testing and contact tracing effort after the outbreak was detected on Sunday. Picture: Tait Schmaal.

But what of personal responsibility beyond that?

Surely it’s burned into the brain of every person on the planet by now: stay home if you’re sick, get tested, stand 1.5m away from people and wash your hands.

Of course that won’t stop the virus completely, but every health official will tell you it goes a long, long way.

For more than six months Australians have been told they need to learn to live with the virus, but examples of lax attention to the basics are everywhere.

On my flight from Sydney to Launceston earlier this month, only about half the plane was wearing a mask.

Not even all of the flight attendants were wearing one.

South Australian Premier Steven Marshall once had a hard border closure and is now facing the same treatment from neighbouring states and territories. Picture: Kelly Barnes/Getty Images

It was so frustrating, I wanted to yell down the entire cabin. What are you all thinking?! You’re all lucky enough to be on the first flight from Sydney to Launceston in nine months, but can’t be bothered wearing a mask for a couple of hours?

Australia’s health system has been purposely configured to trace, test and quarantine the virus.

Where there have been major outbreaks, at least one of those key pillars has failed.

It’s wonderful that several COVID-19 vaccine candidates have had incredibly positive trial results, but even in a best-case scenario in which Australia starts rolling out doses to vulnerable people by early next year, the nation is still a way off full inoculation.

SA Health is testing thousands of people after the outbreak. Picture: Tait Schmaal

Most conservative estimates place that glorious date at least in the back half of 2021 – another 12 months of clusters, outbreak scares and, judging by today, snap border closures.

The borders debate, which has become a toxic and partisan grudge match between state and federal, Liberal and Labor governments, needs a reset.

Australians have sacrificed so much this year. To throw it away out of complacency, dashing hopes of family reunions, undermines the good work that has come so far.

It’s time to get better at living with the virus.

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