Castaways: How it Feels to be in Australia Right Now

Castaways. We are castaways. Ahoy there. Ahoy. We are castaways.
If you don’t have that song stuck in your head now, you mustn’t be obsessed with TikTok like I am. That’s fine. Seriously.

Anyway, we’re not actually castaways. We’re on an island, though. A big f**king island. I knew full well that when we left the US to come back to Australia in September last year, that we’d be “stranded” here for a while. No one could have predicted how the situation in Australia would evolve over the last 9 months, including: further clusters/outbreaks in the single and double digits, the off-on-off approach to mask-mandates, state border closures, the New Zealand travel bubble, the vaccine roll-out debacle and much more. It’s been quite a contradictory state of mind here. On one hand, we’re relatively safe - mostly protected by borders being closed and hotel quarantine, but on the other hand, we can’t leave. So, you have to focus on the positives of the situation, and for me, watching the SBS World News each night gives me a broader sense of what’s going on, and helps me feel at peace with where I am now. It’s all about perspective.

As I continually see my friends in the US go back to a normal-ish life, vaxxed, waxed and ready to enjoy their summer, I’m generally pissed off with the Australian government’s lack of foresight in the doubling up on vaccine types (hedging all their bets on Astrazeneca), hotel quarantine not being 100% effective against the new strains (people are actually contracting covid while in the hotels, from people in other rooms) and the sheer number of Australians still stranded overseas (around 40K).

On the topic of vaccines, in case you didn’t know, Australia went heavy on producing Astrazeneca and it’s now restricted to over-50s due to the fear of potential blood-clotting issues. The small amount of Pfizer we had, was meant to be for frontline workers and aged care residents, but with the recent lockdown in Melbourne, it’s become clear that far too many in aged care and disability care have not received their doses.

Australia now has a serious pause in an already slow vaccine roll-out, meaning that I highly doubt I’ll be vaccinated with Pfizer or Moderna until some time in 2022. Which is fine, I guess, because I can be patient. I don’t really go anywhere, anyway. But with the majority of our population nowhere close to being able to get a vaccine, it means our international borders are going to stay closed for a long time.

So, we’re castaways (totally joking), but also, not really.

To be fair, even if I had been vaccinated, there’s no way I’d be getting on an international flight to travel to a country that doesn’t have things under control. That feels very wrong to me. But I get it. People from countries that have endured a more intense 18 months are probably more desperate to finally get out and about, especially during a northern hemisphere summer.

But here in Australia, it’s my Gemini winter, and I’m perfectly content continuing to wear my tracky-dacks (sweatpants) all day, WFH, go for walks and (by choice) continue to mask-up in public indoor spaces. Until I’m vaccinated, it’s going to be hard for me to fully let my guard down, or even partially. The NZ travel bubble is appealing in that I’ve never been to NZ before, but I won’t be going until I’m vaccinated. The fear of being stranded or forced into another 14-day hotel quarantine stay, outweighs the potential positives of taking a trip.

I definitely have a different perspective to anyone who’s been in Australia since the start of the pandemic, having lived in the US for 5 years, and enduring 6 months in the epicentre of the pandemic, New York, from Feb/March-September 2020. Working in the fashion industry, with vendors and suppliers connected to China, I was actually immersed in the issue since Dec/Jan. When the CDC said we didn’t need to wear masks (clearly as the US Government’s emergency stockpile of PPE was not plentiful enough to cover all frontline workers, let alone the general public) I ignored it, and bought two washable nano-filter PM2.5 mask for Alex and I, from Koreatown near the office. They were the last two left. I was so glad I did, because only a few weeks later, the CDC changed their tune, price gouging kicked off and everyone was scrambling to find masks. I had been watching what Asian countries were doing, and masks weren’t a new concept for them. Having travelled there several times a year for work, I knew masks were commonly worn on high-pollution days or when sick, as a courtesy to others. I followed what they were doing, and fully believe this is what kept us safe the entire time in lockdown, and whilst journeying back to Sydney for 30+ hours door-to-door.

If you didn’t already know, we decided to stay inside our apartment while NYC was the epicentre, watching the numbers growing daily. We agreed to not go outside until it had peaked and plateaued. It took 66 days. Once it was safe, in our minds, to venture out, things didn’t feel the same. We hadn’t lived in New York long enough to be so ingrained in life there, that we could “get over it” and stay. Something felt off. Was it the boarded up shop-fronts of once-vibrant Brooklyn restaurants or the faint echo of the daily Black Lives Matter protests? Was it the 2am fireworks mingled with legitimate gunshots in our neighborhood? Was it the jarring sound of Trump’s voice or the stories of people getting attacked on the now-deserted subways? It was all of it. We didn’t feel like we belonged, because we weren’t citizens. It wasn’t our country to fight for. We felt like visitors, after years of feeling at home.

That whole experience has made me appreciate the lifestyle we can have here, but also incredibly sceptical of the constant rule changes and complacency of most people in Australia. It’s rare that anyone I interact with here fully grasps what the US went through, and what it’s still going through. Our any of the other hardest-hit nations. As I continue to wear masks in malls, supermarkets and on public transport (even though these mandates are not currently in place), I am getting the kinds of looks I got when masks weren’t recommended by the CDC yet in February 2020. People look at me and must be thinking “Why is she wearing a mask? We’re safe here”.

We’re safer here, to a point. But we won’t be totally safe until we’ve been vaccinated.

I have spoken to my US friends about coming to visit in late-2022, as I hope by that summer, things will be opening up and safe for everyone. It seems like a long way away, but I think time will fly by. Most people in other countries that I’ve spoken to are shocked to find out about how delayed Australia’s vaccine rollout is, and how restricted travel will continue to be. It seems like we had everything in our favour, we were handling things so well. But now, we’re at risk of being left behind, cast away.

I used to always be one of those people who knew I’d live overseas at some point. I don’t know if I thought it would be the US. Probably not. I could write a whole separate post about my experience living there, but for now, I’ll end with this:

Life in Australia in 2021 is pretty great. It’s not the life I’m used to living, with constant movement, activities, adventures, exploring, socialising. I stay home more than most people. But it’s all by choice. I’m OK. We’re OK. I hope that once the international borders open, many of you reading this consider visiting us down here. It’s a pretty cool place, once you get here.