Sydney lockdown: if we’re all in this together, let’s ditch the scapegoating
Afriend in Punchbowl texted me late on Saturday night to ask if we would still be allowed to send our kids to daycare.
I’m so confused about the lockdown. It’s not clear about daycares and whether they are open. Does it mean we can work in our own council but can’t leave it?
Earlier that day, New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian had announced additional restrictions to the Canterbury-Bankstown and Liverpool local government areas. This was in addition to the ones already in place for the Fairfield LGA.
I can’t find any information anywhere. Nada. This is not fair.
I went online to read the latest public health order but it was unclear. My friend’s text that night was soon followed by two anxious emails from the family daycare service I use for my son, which caters to hundreds of families in the Bankstown area. They were as confused as we were.
It was only early the next morning that I saw a clarification had been issued. So at 5am I texted my friend back to say daycares were still open for all workers, which meant she could continue her work as a primary school teacher.
As the restrictions in south-west Sydney have become more onerous over the past few weeks, local business owners I know have found it practically impossible to stay afloat. Ali, who runs the local Lebanese bakery, no longer has construction workers and schoolkids stopping by. Duc and Tina, who run a popular cafe in Bankstown, made the hard decision to close indefinitely. They live in the Fairfield LGA and crossing the border at the “Meccano Set’’ arrangement of traffic lights on the Hume Highway every day would have meant being tested every three days for uncertain financial gain.
Meanwhile, our postie, Thanh, is working extra shifts to keep up with the unprecedented demand. We often see him first thing because we’re close to the Australia Post parcel sorting facility. Chullora is where a lot of the nation’s retail (and retail therapy) purchases pass through. The residents of southwest Sydney feed the city, distribute its goods, and undertake a lot of critical work. So it was gratifying to hear acknowledgment from the state’s chief health officer, Kerry Chant, last week that it’s the area that “keeps our city going”.
Which is why it’s been disheartening, though hardly surprising, to see and hear the scapegoating at press conferences, in the media and online. It’s bad enough the state government quickly resorted to the blunt instrument of the police to force compliance, without the moral police coming out in force too. Pointing fingers at individuals and “communities” (that is, ‘‘ethnics’’) is not what will get us out of this mess, given the main problem is one of leadership, as well as Australia’s alarmingly low rate of vaccination.
Eradicating a highly infectious virus is like trying to slay a many-headed Hydra. The rapid spreading through a multicultural metropolis is a monumental challenge, to say the least. But this is absolutely a national emergency, just like the bushfires were. Remember those? When I walked out of LidcombeBankstown Hospital in December 2019, I cradled my newborn to protect him from particles of ash falling from the burnt orange sky.
Like climate change, a virus doesn’t respect our parochial concerns, and certainly not the borders of our LGAs, states and nations. Our borders are the products of bureaucratic and colonial imagination, after all, rather than actual barriers. It seems worth noting that the current borders of the CanterburyBankstown LGA are new, a result of the council mergers of 2016.
It’s hard not to look back to five long weeks ago and wonder about the alternative reality we would be living in right now if Bondi had been locked down first. Doing that would have been a breeze – a beautiful ocean breeze – in comparison to what we’re now trying to do with south-west Sydney. Also much fairer, given it wouldn’t have been much of a burden to the residents of Bondi, who don’t go past Anzac Parade if they can help it.
But, given the porousness of borders, it was always likely the Delta variant of Covid-19 would spread this way, despite popular belief that the best solution to a global pandemic is to keep locking ourselves down. Actually, my husband is from Bondi and I’ve been joking that Covid followed his trailblazing path by migrating to this part of the west. It was only a matter of time that, like him, the virus would be drawn to the most vibrant and dynamic part of Sydney.
Over the past few years I’ve been lecturing to postgraduate university students about the ethics of public health interventions. I discuss how utilitarianism is the philosophical basis which often underpins our decisionmaking in Australia: the greatest good for the greatest number. But I always make a point of discussing the moral cost of utilitarianism. That even when we decide an intervention is justifiable, it is unconscionable to not acknowledge that for a majority to gain, a minority will probably suffer.
This is exactly what’s happening here. One of our neighbours works in an aged-care home in a neighbouring LGA. She is in her 30s and has not yet been vaccinated. Now she will need to be tested every three days. This is a disproportionate burden, given that she’s also a mum with three young kids to look after, including one who is school-aged.
I was lucky enough to get my second jab of Pfizer in mid-June at the Liverpool vaccination clinic. Since then, if I ever encounter someone hesitating, I tell them I’m vaccinated, in case it reassures them. I try not to come across as patronising when I say “vaccination is our only chance”. But I don’t blame people for feeling fearful; the government, politicians and the media have created a perfect storm of unhelpful doubt about AstraZeneca in particular.
My 70-year-old parents are like many people in south-west Sydney. They survived a war and a harrowing boat journey, and resettled here as adult refugees. Their legacy has been both a burden and a gift in terms of helping me develop perspective. Yet even my parents, who adore medical interventions, were worried about AstraZeneca. It indicated to me that it truly has been a colossal stuff-up with the messaging, that two people who beat incredible odds to even be alive right now were worrying about the minuscule odds of a negative reaction to the vaccine.
My parents never take my advice, so it was of their own accord that they got their first jab of AstraZeneca a few weeks ago. There are many lessons we can learn from refugees, and overcoming your fears when your life depends on it is certainly one of them. Once they receive their second jab and the lockdown ends, they will reopen their business at a shopping centre in the eastern suburbs which was, in fact, an early exposure site of the Bondi outbreak.
The only way we’ll get through this is with true solidarity: less scapegoating, clear and respectful communication, more financial support, and better and timely access to vaccines. We need to ensure that the hardworking residents of south-west and western Sydney are not unfairly burdened longer than necessary. Otherwise, how will the area continue to be the engine which keeps Sydney going?
Sheila Ngoc Pham is a writer working across public health, media and the arts. She lives on Darug land in southwest Sydney with her husband and two kids
Like climate change, a virus doesn’t respect our parochial concerns, and certainly not our borders