GREAT REOPENING OR GREAT HESITANCY?

THE great reopening is resembling the great uncertainty. Weeks ago saw the momentous removal of border blocks into Queensland and the Gold Coast just in time for the festive and New Year period.

It has since been clouded by a hodge-podge of isolation and quarantine requirements in part fuelled by a global surge of reportedly highly contagious new Covid variant Omicron.

Initially people deemed close contacts – even if double-vaccinated – of a Covid breakout faced being required to isolate for at least a week.

It led to passengers on an inbound flight being told to quarantine for 14 days before Health Minister Yvette D’Ath quickly backflipped, facing immediate howls about the blows to visitor confidence that would provoke.

More recently it has still left people in danger of missing out on united family Christmases and organisations such as the police looking at roster shuffles due to close contact scares.

A Broadbeach family caught up in a school close contact is one of nearly 100 understood to have been told to isolate for a week.

One of the family members tells the Bulletin today: “Queensland Health told us how good this vaccine is and promoted the freedoms it would give when we reached a certain rate, yet they are still imposing restrictions and isolations on families without any real regard of the consequences.”

A required home isolation period of 14 days for the unvaccinated deemed close contacts to a Covid case will stay in place. But a reduction of the isolation period to seven days for the vaccinated deemed close contacts has been brought forward from January 1 to today. The decision was revealed by the state government on Tuesday morning. Seven days is still a long time and threat to festive unity. So much uncertainty remains. The possibility of being caught in a close contact situation will be giving rise to people not checking in if they can get away with it, declining to press on with interstate travel and fears entire parts of the economy will shut down due to isolation requirements.

A survey this week revealed nearly 75 per cent of Aussies are wavering on committing to travel plans, with regional carrier Rex Airlines already recording a rash of cancellations.

It does not bode well for the mooted $280m economic injection the Gold Coast was tipped to get from the reopening over the festive-New Year holidays.

So far “learning to live with Covid” does not feel a whole lot like that yet.

More clarity will no doubt emerge from today’s emergency national cabinet meeting.