Coronavirus Australia: Now I can visit friends and family, I’m not sure I want to

Many of us will soon be able to visit one another’s homes. But rather than feeling relief, does your corona-neurosis mean the prospect fills you with dread? I may just stay home.

OPINION

The announcement from the New South Wales Premier that from Friday up to two people and their kids will be allowed to visit other people in their homes came as something of a surprise.

Given NSW is the state most affected by coronavirus – with more than 3000 cases and around 40 deaths – many imagined we’d be the last out of lockdown. It seems Victorians will have that privilege/penalty.

The relaxation of the state’s restrictions should have come as joyous relief.

After all, like most residents of NSW – indeed Australia – my world has got a lot smaller. It now extends a kilometre or two in each direction bordered by a supermarket, a coffee shop, a park and a bottle-o. So, I can have a glass of wine as a reward for a run.

How much fun would it be to actually see people again? To brush of the cobwebs of national stay-at-home month which was April.

And yet when the invite came to pop round on the weekend to see close friends who have been equally as cooped up; to say hi in person rather than over Zoom and share some chips and dip – I unexpectedly recoiled.

After five weeks of lockdown, maybe longer given time has become an elastic concept, I’m not sure I’m ready to go out into the wild. To get on a train; to see someone in real life; to chat like that’s normal.

How do you even negotiate chips, dip and a cheese board in the age of coronavirus?

Part of me wants to stay huddled up in a corner of my home, wine and hand sanitiser close at hand.

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Two people visiting another household is back on in NSW. But keep your distance. Picture: iStock

CORONA-NEUROSIS

Five weeks of lockdown will turn you into a hypochondriac. I don’t have coronavirus, I have corona-neurosis.

Can we be trusted with even this chink in the armour of lockdown? Look what happened when they reopened the beaches – Sydneysiders flocked to them like moths on a kamikaze mission with the nearest porch light.

The Premier has put a caveat around the relaxation of restrictions. It was chiefly to improve mental health, she said.

“We know so many people in our community have been literally locked up in their homes for weeks on end,” Gladys Berejiklian said.

“However, we expect every family, every close friendship to have a conversation about what you do with the new arrangements.

“This is not a holiday.”

Read between the lines and she’s basically telling us now is not the time for house parties. She’s looking at you, NRL players.

Since March, aside from my partner, I have seen two friends in the flesh – and one of those was sheer fluke as we bumped into one another.

The only other human contact I’ve had has been with a barista, the guy down the pub who now sells beer from a table on the street rather than behind a bar, and the nice person at Woolies who has to work out if I really do have an unexpected item in the bagging area.

You see cheeses, I see coronavirus droplet landing zones.

Like most people I’ve become adept at avoiding others; my body now almost automatically swerves from the footpath into the road if there’s even the merest rumour of another pedestrian ahead.

In shop aisles, I hang back so I don’t have to reach over other shoppers to get to the milk.

When I exercise, I fret a gust of wind may take one of my exhaled droplets, possibly virus-laden, and tumble it gently through the trees and towards someone over 60 with underlying health conditions.

Now, I’m faced with the prospect of meeting several friends face to socially distant face. And even this scrap of normality is sending my synapses into a storm of stress.

Sure, hugs and kisses are out but I’m not convinced there is 1.5 metres distance between chairs on opposing sides of their table.

What if I have coronavirus? What if they have coronavirus? What if the lid on the dip has coronavirus? What if someone has coronavirus and leaves it on the cheese knife and then I pick up said cheese knife and wipe my face?

Perhaps we should meet in the park? Except we’re still not allowed to that if it involves more than two people.

Perhaps we should meet for less than 15 minutes? To ease ourselves into this newfangled, old fashioned world of seeing people? If it’s less than 15 minutes then not even the COVIDsafe app will let on if one of us later gets virused.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian is like, don’t bugger this up NSW. Picture: Dean Lewins/AAP

Ms Berejiklian has said people should still remain at home as much as possible. Going to another person’s house is merely an extension of the “reasonable excuse” of caring for someone. She has suggested short trips and hanging out in the garden.

“I don't ever want to be in a situation where NSW has to go backwards on something we've allowed people to do. I want us to keep making steps forward,” she said.

“It will be pretty obvious if you're doing the wrong thing … as we’ll be getting a spike in cases.”

But the relaxation is a test of exactly that – of how far the virus has spread.

If in two weeks there is a jump in cases from even this modest measure it’ll be proof the virus is circulating widely. If the rise is modest, or there’s none at all, then more relaxations might be on the cards.

As Prime Minister Scott Morrison said yesterday: “Having a low number of cases but Australians not able to be going about their lives as normally as possible – that is not what success looks like.”

So, I’m going to slightly ease open my lockdown bubble.

I’ve managed to get my head around going to the supermarket, I can surely cope with a house call to improve everyone’s mental health?

But I might bring my own knife for the cheese.