The stoic, some might say meek, Melbourne community accepted the Lockdown 4.0 news like it had happened a few times before. Just as it had.
No school, no community sport, no restaurants, no pubs. No point.
Just after midday, a skateboarder spoke for 6.6 million people when he cruised down the hill in Melbourne’s Bourke St in no danger of being struck.
A solid 12 hours before the official shutdown, fewer than 20 commuters were under the clocks in Flinders St. A familiar pattern followed throughout the capital as grey nomads fled the city up the Hume Freeway in their hundreds and the holiday house crew loaded their cars for the frigid surf.
Melbourne airport was heaving with domestic refugees and people quietly started to again vigorously wash their hands and log into the QR code system.
Only the young, planning the last night out before the new rules kicked in a minute before midnight, showed any great enthusiasm for action.
The outbreak has again hit hardest in Melbourne’s north.
Epping North Woolworths, on the outer edge of the city, is wedged between Indian grocers, family health centres and a Lebanese pastry shop – and has emerged as the ground zero of the Melbourne outbreak. It was where a Melbourne man shopped after being released from Adelaide hotel quarantine, creating a Covid-19 exposure site that may be a key to the virus’s spread.
“I’m worried, just really worried about it,” said 65-year-old retiree Lance Barry.
“I’m a bad asthmatic, I’m really on tenterhooks. This is my first time out for the week. You hope it’s not as long as last time.”
He was not alone. Rahin Adam, a 32-year-old web developer, hadn’t been to the shops for days “because the bloke was here”.
“I tried to avoid it,’’ he said, lamenting the grinding numbness of the 111-day Lockdown 2.0. “It wasn’t easy, I was one of the lucky ones who worked from home. I took some walks and runs.”
As Victoria’s Acting Premier James Merlino spoke, Melburnians in their millions listened to the radio and watched the lockdown press conference unfold, heavily loaded with the politics of the pandemic. They were left in no doubt about Merlino’s views on the vaccine and quarantine.
Mask compliance, anecdotally, seemed to be relatively high across the city as the government named more than 150 exposure sites, from Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, all the way to the NSW border. This means the infected have probably been all over the joint.
At the Royal Exhibition Building, people lined up, socially distanced of course, in their hundreds for the vaccine, a sharp increase in interest compared with last week.
While the main 2020 breakout largely hit lower socio-economic areas, there are signs that well-heeled suburbs such as Hawthorn, Doncaster and South Yarra may already be in the Covid-19 gun. Certainly at risk.
The Coles supermarket in Tooronga was listed as an exposure site, 10km southeast of the city, and was recently closed for deep cleaning.
Brenton Rice, the manager of nearby food merchants Scicluna’s, said lockdown meant it would be “bedlam” in his store because of the roaring demand for good food.
His store has been one of the pandemic’s winners.
“We were busier than ever,’’ he said of the last major lockdown. “It increases sales drastically.”
The downside, and there always is a downside, is that every person is a winner and a loser. School might be out, exams delayed for example, but then comes the inevitable boredom that hangs like a Port Phillip Bay fog. In many ways, it's the story of Lockdown 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0, with the longer the closures, the heavier the burden. Now for chapter 4.0, with no certainty about when it will all end.
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The impotence of lockdown life started almost as soon as it was declared.