In 2022, Australians still in self-isolation

It’s a story repeated in every Australian state, except Western Australia.

Australia recorded more cases in the first two weeks of 2022 than in the previous two years combined. For most, the threat posed by Covid has eased – 92.4% of Australians over the age of 16 are fully vaccinated, and 18% have also had a booster shot. And the Omicron variant, which has ripped through the country since December, appears to result in a less severe illness, in most cases, than previous variants of Covid-19.

Public health orders enforced by strict and punitive laws have been replaced by a mantra of personal responsibility. It is up to individuals to determine and manage their own risk. For the most vulnerable people, the only way to manage this risk is to retreat.

The vulnerables stories

— Ashleigh Cooper, who has spent the new year indoors. Around her, in the suburbs of Melbourne, Covid cases are soaring. Cooper is disabled and immunocompromised. She went into self-isolation two weeks ago.

Cooper says she felt significantly safer when Melbourne was in lockdown and finds the argument that people should “get over” their concern about a global pandemic “incredibly invalidating”.

Also invalidating is the implication, from some public health messaging and public responses to death announcements, that a disease is less devastating if most of its victims are people who have pre-existing conditions.

“Almost everyone has a pre-existing condition,” Cooper says. “Are you willing to justify risking the health of vulnerable people for that privilege?”

— Giarn Carroll, the Hobart-based 23-year-old lives with a raft of chronic illnesses and immune conditions; Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, fibromyalgia, mast cell activation syndrome, and adrenal insufficiency, which put them in the severely immunocompromised category when it comes to COVID-19.

With the spread of the virus in Tasmania recently hitting unprecedented levels, they’ve now made a decision to live in self-imposed lockdown because they don’t feel safe out in the community.

Giarn says self-imposed lockdowns are even harder than government-imposed ones because people doing them are invisible to support services.

“With my Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, it’s a physical disability, and the main things that help keep me moving and mobile are hydrotherapy and physiotherapy – but I can’t access either of those at the moment without putting myself at risk.

 

‘Utter confusion about what we should be doing’

Most people  are still recovering from the impact of long lockdowns and do not want a return to restrictions. They just want an indication from governments both state and federal that they will be supported and able to easily access tests and healthcare as the outbreak, and any new variants to come, rolls on.

Like many, they focused on the vaccine rollout – when everyone who was eligible was double-vaccinated it would be OK. Then Omicron happened, the inevitable consequence of a lack of global vaccine equity, and the promise of a return to normal life has been pushed back once more.

‘Have we given up?’

Almost everyone who spoke to Guardian Australia said they would feel more comfortable moving around if they had access to free, readily available rapid antigen tests.

Australian government frontbencher Simon Birmingham told the ABC on Friday that demand for testing, from both PCR and rapid tests, had been “far in excess of what has been modelled in Australia and all around the world”. The Australian government has since ordered $62m worth of rapid antigen tests.