Border closures

sound like a good idea. They can seem like the only way of stopping something like the Covid19 virus spreading still further into the community.  They are supported by people who know far more than I do about the transmission of highly contagious diseases. I have to assume they are right and I would do as they directed.

Something like a border closure may help to halt the spread of the virus and we have to learn to accept that. The problem is that it also stops so many other things as well. They may not seem big things compared with saving lives but they can be big events in the lives of many people. 

A friend of mine was due to go to his daughter's wedding today. Instead he is stuck here in this state and the wedding plans are in chaos. I don't know what is happening. All I know is that when he spoke to me about what should have been tidying up some work before he left he said he couldn't go. To say he is upset is putting it mildly. His daughter is devastated. 

She is right to be devastated. The wedding was delayed from last year. They were keeping it small - twenty-two guests is very small for a Downunder wedding. They are getting married where her husband-to-be's parents are living because her father-in-law to be is too ill to travel. They don't want to delay the wedding again because he may not have much longer to live. The priest who should be conducting the ceremony can't travel. 

It's all a disaster. They know there are other people in similar positions but it doesn't make it any easier..

This current cluster centres around the "medi-hotel" in which people have been "isolated" after coming in from overseas. Many of the people in that facility are people who have come here for a tennis tournament. Others are people who have been trying to come "home" for months - citizens of Downunder who were abroad when the virus started to take hold.

I know people who are saying that we should have allowed the tennis players to come - because we might lose the tournament permanently if we cancelled it. I know other people who have been complaining that their children cannot get on a flight to return here when their children were on gap years and working holidays overseas. I also know people who could not leave what they were doing overseas who would like to come back here to relative safety.

The tennis tournament should have been cancelled. The Olympics in Tokyo should be cancelled too. I know there are financial consequences but they are not the long term financial consequences that the spread of the virus is having. The financial consequences would be disastrous for some people but the financial consequences of the virus spread are far worse.  

I have little sympathy for those who were on "working holidays" abroad and decided to delay their return home when there were still plenty of flights available and there wasn't even a need to quarantine. I know that, in the same position at that age, I would have resented giving up the dream of a lifetime to travel. One of the things I have always regretted not being able to do is that long overland trip from Kathmandu to London. It would have been a growing experience for me but I had to acknowledge I didn't have the physical capacity to keep up with a group of other healthy, adventurous young people. Still, it does mean I know what the disappointment is and it is better to be here now. 

I do have sympathy for several people I know who have academic positions they could not leave, especially where it would have meant leaving vital research half done.  They are those complaining the least. They know they have simply had to accept the inevitable.

The international conference for a group I belong to has been cancelled for the second time. It is too dangerous for people, many of whom have severe physical disabilities, to travel. It will happen some time but not right now. The organisers are being realistic and responsible.

I had a short email from the girl who will get married - somehow, somewhere.  In it she thanked me for the gift I had sent months ago - the shawl to be worn on her wedding day. 

"I'll just have to wait to use it but I will use it and it is going to mean even more then." 

Perhaps though the organisers of the tennis tournament should have waited as well?