The Covid Cycle - Part 1

While we emerge from our Covid spring after 18 months of rolling lockdowns sometime in the future I am going to look back and ask myself what happened during covid in 2020 and 2021.  How did my family and I get through living in Melbourne, one of the world’s most locked down cities (263 days) over that 18-month period from March 2020 to October 2021?  In recent times I’ve started to look at this blog differently.  I haven’t kept a journal since my mid-twenties, so if my children want to know more about what I thought about something or my lived experience, here it is, just in case they forgot to ask.

 

Living through covid was a remarkable experience from a multitude of perspectives as a partner, a parent, a son, a friend, a manager and a cyclist, well this is a cycling blog after all.  More about cycling in part 2 of the Covid Cycle.

 

The storm was brewing from afar in China and the USA in January 2020, where deaths were being attributed to a novel corona virus. Whilst we may never know the actual source of the virus, it appears to have originated from a wet market in Wuhan in China which traded wild animals possibly as early as November 2019, hence the term Covid-19.  In February 2020, ABC Radio National’s Health Report began talking about it and interviewing infectious disease specialists such as Professor Raina MacIntyre from the Kirby Institute who initial gave it an alert of 7/10 (wear a mask in public).  A fortnight later it was 9/10 (minimise all unnecessary contact outside the household and wear a M95 mask when you do go out) and this was getting serious.  At this time my eldest son and his girlfriend were travelling south each Asia.  I was eager for them to get some masks to wear while they were flying home.  Fortunately, they landed on the 12^th February without the virus, just a few weeks before they would both start their university courses.  About a week into March, one of my team who was on her honeymoon in Europe had to come home early and she became the first person I knew with Covid.

 

Initially there were a trickle of cases into Australia, mainly from China.  Flights from mainland China were barred from entering Australia.  The watershed moment came when the Ruby Princess cruise ship docked in Sydney on the 19^th of March and its passengers were allowed to disembark and were instructed to go home and self-isolate for 14 days.  An inquiry later revealed that at least 662 people tested positive to Covid and 28 people died.  This was getting serious and both NSW state government and Commonwealth government agencies dropped the bundle in terms of their responsibilities.  To think a major outbreak could have been thwarted if people were doing their jobs properly.

 

Meanwhile at work, I’m taking all of this in and war-gaming with my network engineer.  What do we need to do to enable our staff to work from home (WFH)?  Around mid-March, I called our operations manager and ask if they would like me to put together a WFH option in the event it’s required.  No, was the response, we don’t think it’s necessary at this stage.   Let’s keep going, I say to my network engineer.  It was way too late and expensive to buy laptops, so we put virtual private network (VPN) on our PCs.  Our business was already using a Remote Desktop Client, so that made it easy to deploy.  We just needed a power source for our Voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) phones and staff could pick up their desktops, monitors, cables and power supplies and go home and plug into their internet and start working.  Ok, so there was a well-documented set of instructions with pictures.   I proposed to management that we purchased the additional equipment while it was in stock.  By the time I got all clear, half of what we needed was gone and it was a mad scramble to find what we needed from smaller retailers around the country.  Then bang, the lockdowns began in late March 2020 and most of the country was working from home.

 

Lockdown One: 43 days

March 30, 11:59pm to May 12, 11:59pm

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Stage 3 restrictions were introduced in my home state of Victoria.  There were only four reasons for leaving the home

• food and supplies; medical care; exercise; and work or education and
• gatherings of no more than two people unless they are members of an immediate household, and it is for work or education.

 

All of a sudden, our household of 6 and occasionally 7, Paula, myself and our 4 teenagers ranging in age from 14 to 18, were all literally under the one roof 24/7, with the exception of that one hour a day when we were allowed to exercise within a 5km radius of home.  Home became the compound, and I am grateful that we had the space to accommodate everyone comfortably.  Overnight the bedroom became the home office, all classes and work went online.  All social activities were shutdown.  You could only go out an exercise with one other person.

 

Family mealtimes became very important to check in with how everyone was handling being under the same roof, without regular organised and incidental contact.  To break up the cooking responsibilities, we arranged for some themed family dinners.  We put names into a hat and cuisines into a hat, to decide who would cook and what they would cook  We enjoyed Mexican feasts, French flair, Russian fare, inspired Italian meals. After dinner board games and multiplayer games on the Wii were a great way to stay connected. 

 

Family occasions went online.  My mother-in-law organised fortnightly Zoom calls for mid Sunday morning to fit in with members in Australia and Canada and up to 4 different time zones.  I think it was the highlight of her week to see and hear everyone, no matter how disjointed it felt at times.  Although we have seen most family members since the lockdowns ended, the tradition survives. Unfortunately, my mother-in-law did have to miss celebrating her 80^th birthday, but it was all in the interest of keeping everyone safe.

We enjoyed drinks on the nature strip with friends and connected with neighbours. I witnessed neighbours pulling off fence panels to celebrate birthdays and maintain social distancing.  

 

Regular sport for my boys was stop-start over a period of months, until it became all too hard, and the seasons were abandoned.  During this time, I encouraged my kids to get out and do some strength training with me.  We set a goal of twice a week after work on Tuesdays and Thursdays to get out in the home gym to do our sets and play basketball or cricket in between.  It was whilst playing one on one basketball that the seriousness of it all took over and I think my nose got broken yet again, or at least banged up enough for me to call it quits on the basketball.  So, we became cricket tragics, occasionally fitting in 5 overs each of batting and bowling at lunch time which constituted a mini-backyard test match stretched out over a few days.  My newfound appreciation for the game culminated in me playing my first game of club cricket at the age of 54.  To be honest, I didn’t realise how in the moment and intense the game could be, but that’s a blog for another day.

 

Paula’s fitness classes were cancelled, as all gyms were closed.   One of my fondest and earliest memories was of Paula running a cross training session for four of us in our improvised home gym. 

 

As the lockdowns stretched out and holidays were impossible, it was important for us to break up the routine of work and weekends and take a weekday off every couple of months, just to go for a walk together and sit down and watch a movie. 

 

Podcasts became a valuable source of information about Covid-19 beyond the news headlines.  The two standouts being ABC’s Coronacast and the Radio National Health Report hosted by Dr Norman Swan and Tegan Taylor, kept me informed about the latest developments.

 

Meanwhile my kids had to battle with online learning.  My eldest Matthew, managed to thrive in his first two years of university, thanks to the fact that he had done a VCE subject via distance education and knew what he had to do.  Liam managed to successfully navigate his way through year 11 and 12 and get into his preferred course.  Meanwhile James and Lachlan  completed years 9 and 10. 

 

Paula decided a career change in and started studying nursing in 2021, while balancing part time work and caring for a busy family and is now almost halfway through her undergraduate course.

 

My niece Posy from Burlington, Ontario in Canada bravely decided to leave home in late 2020 and head to Perth, one of the least locked down cities in the world. Posy did three lots of isolation and stayed with us for a month during lockdown 6.

 

Zoom, Facetime, Teams and Webex, turned from pronouns into verbs.  Suddenly, I was interviewing people for roles without meeting in person and it worked.  Zoom drinks became a thing.  Some of my inventive suppliers put on virtual food, wine and cocktail events to maintain engagement with customers, which was appreciated.

 

At work, keeping morale up was important as we went to WFH.  Guessing games for when the lockdown would end.  Icebreaker questions to start the daily huddle and sometimes just hearing about weekend highlights or what was the key learning of the week.  The informality of this time has allowed us to share more of ourselves and trust each other with our stories.  As a team we delivered significant projects and kept the business functioning at the same pre-covid level.

 

Supporting our local businesses such as the baker, bottle shop, supermarket, greengrocer took on a new level of importance.  Our Sunday morning date walk was to buy a coffee whatever we had forgotten to buy during our big weekly shop.

 

Viewing habits changed.  Having “our” series to watch became a time out together to dissect the latest offerings free to air and subscription TV services.  Yellowstone (Stan) which turned a Montana ranch into a simmering soap opera we couldn’t get enough of. Contagion (SBS) gave us a valuable insight into the mindset of a pandemic, Alone (SBS) had us all wondering if we could survive alone in the wilderness and Squid Game (Netflix) need I say more was the series of 2021 which left us wanting more.

It would be remiss of me not to mention homemade sour dough and kombucha, that Paula perfected and kept us coming back for more.  Experimenting further with bagels, crumpets and pizza dough, showed that we are only limited by our imagination and willingness to do something new.

 

How did it pan out and what do I remember?

 

Lockdown Two: 111 days

July 8, 11:59pm to October 27, 11:59pm 2020

-        Sport for the boys barely got off the ground and the season was cancelled

      We had the first night time AFL grandfinal and my team the Richmond Tigers won.  

-        At least we got to enjoy a summer and Christmas without a lockdown

 

Lockdown Three: 5 days

February 12, 11:59pm to February 17, 11:59pm 2021

-        Fortunately, short and sharp

-   Sport resumed with a lot of protocols around it, such as a Covid Safety Officer, reduced spectator numbers and lots of sanitising

 

Lockdown Four: 14 days

May 27^th 11:59pm to June 10, 11:59pm 2021

-        Managed to get two bike races in and get my first vaccination

 

Lockdown Five: 12 Days

July 15^th 11:59pm to July 27^th 11:59^pm  2021

-      Paula and I managed to get away for a day hike at the Werribee Gorge and a night in Hepburn Springs on the eve of lockdown 6.

 

Lockdown Six: 78 Days

August 5^th, 8:00pm to October 21, 11:59pm 2021

-    Winter sport season cancelled, which was disappointing for Liam in his final year of junior football

-        Cricket season commenced and I made by debut with Edinburgh Cricket Club

 

For a full list of lock down stats go to https://lockdownstats.melbourne/timeline/

 

As I write this at the end of May, 2022, the whole family is fully vaccinated. The covid count in the family is 3.  Liam (new year’s 2021), Paula (two weeks ago) and myself (currently).  Fortunately, it has been a mild experience for us.  One of my team has had it twice and still suffers the effects of long covid.  It’s been a challenging time for everyone, especially our health professionals and teachers.  I’ll leave you with my key learnings.

 

Learnings

-   Things become more important when a premium is placed on them.  Many colleagues remarked how important it was to get out and exercise when you were only allowed to leave home for one hour a day.

•  For those us who work in offices, work is work.  If you have internet and the right communication tools, you can work from anywhere.
•  Don’t underestimate how much we a human beings need regular social contact.  Even a phone call or video call can cheer us or a friend up.
•  Don’t be afraid to start something new.  Paula completed the first year of a nursing degree all while working part time and managing a busy family. I competed in online races on the Zwift platform and played club cricket.  We made different foods and played more games together.
• Practice gratitude:  Being grateful for the relationships I have with family, friends and colleagues.  Whilst my many aspects of life went virtual, it made those relationships even more important to provide support and be supported by those around me.

How was your Covid experience?  Please share your thoughts and comments.