An Omicron state of mind

I’m feeling … I don’t know the word for it. But somehow this year already feels a bit like it’s out of control and it’s only mid February. The Omicron Wave has messed up my head a bit. Like for 2 years here in Qld we fought so hard to keep case numbers low and deaths to a minimum. We weren’t popular at times, but we were relatively safe and leading our lives to the best we could. Each death was a tragedy no matter how old or young, the person’s state of health, disabled or not. And then December last year, just as we were opening our borders the Omicron variant arrived in Australia. I thought, ok, we’ll have borders open for Christmas/New Year and then shut them again temporarily, have our snap lockdowns, and get it back under control. But no. Borders remained open, no real restrictions, no attempt at slowing the spread. Case numbers rose dramatically and we were told to expect to catch Covid at some point. But it’s for the good of the economy and getting back to normal life. Unless of course you catch Covid and die, or suffer from Long Covid in which case … well … what? How many people have we “lost” because now apparently we loose them, instead of acknowledging their death. How many families have been heartbroken needlessly. I don’t think we would have had so many deaths if we’d approached this more cautiously.

I find it incredibly disturbing that we are being asked to accept these high numbers of cases and deaths and say “it’s good”, “it’s what needs to happen”. I can’t do it. So I’m not listening to the pressers any more. I can’t. I can’t listen to “the numbers are blah, blah, but this is what we expected, we are on track”.

Of course I do understand that we need to return to some kind of normal. But how different would it have been if we didn’t open a flood gate? If we allowed people time to get their vaccines and boosters before letting Omicron rip through the communities. Time for people to prepare *before* rather than putting “Covid preparedness kits” together afterwards.

I’m not sure how to deal with all the Covid stuff but hopefully letting it out here will help. I’ll talk to my psychologist about it too. And then on top of that there’s the normal life admin of running a house with 4 kids that are all at different important stages. I have a feeling this isn’t going to be the slower year I was hoping for!