It has been a little niggle. Like a worry that you worry but don’t really have to do anything about but you know it is there, worrying. Sometimes it flares up, when it all gets closer to home. The same state, the same city, the same suburbs, the same shops. 

But with an attitude of ‘we can fix this, let’s all be sensible’, we have been part of a cohort of people who adhere to our short, sharp lockdowns. Stay home. Physically distance. Wear a mask. Sanitise hands. Numbers reduce, restrictions ease, the worry calms.

Like many global things that Australians watch but don’t experience, we have seen the news from across the world. Italy. Iran. Spain. The USA. India. We have been horrified, amazed at the spread of this disease that could so often be prevented. Prevention that can be easy to achieve in first world countries but is so much harder in poorer areas. Prevention that can so easily occur if people work together, thinking of others and listening to experts.

I have thought time and time again, thank goodness we don’t live there. Usually, thank goodness we don’t live in the USA, where I see accounts on Twitter of masks not being mandatory, children having to go back to school in person despite soaring case numbers, people not isolating and not vaccinating and not being able to take time off work and not being able to work from home.

Yet with all that we could have learned over the last two years, we are here. The worrying niggle is much more present, less of a niggle and more of a prominent worry. A worry that has me wondering if we’re doing the right thing, sending two girls too young to be vaccinated off to daycare. Worrying that a supermarket trip will come home with disease. Worrying that a supermarket trip won’t provide enough food due to the food shortages due to truck drivers being off work due to illness. Worrying that we might have a small accident that might require a trip to a hospital that can’t take us because they are suddenly full. Worrying that any sneeze or cough is not just a sneeze or cough but a sign of COVID. Worrying that if I accept offers of help from older people we might unwittingly give them COVID and the repercussions for them would be far greater than for others. Worrying that we’d have a notification from daycare about a case there.

Monday that last worry was realised. A case. A child in C’s class, there on one of the same days she is. Then email after email notifying us of further cases. The worry about each case. Will it be mild? Will they be ok? When will we see them again? What about their household? The worry about the new government policies. Childcare centres are no longer considered close contact but does anyone understand what babies and toddlers and preschoolers are like? Physical distancing is impossible. And if they’re told they can still attend, most parents will still send their kids because they don’t have a choice.

Thankfully, the staff were instructed to test and isolate regardless of government regulations.  Thankfully, we have the capacity to keep the girls home this week. Thankfully, we are free from symptoms so don’t need to test. Or worry quite so much.

But there is still that worry. That worry that has me in sudden tears as I try to settle E for sleep. That worry that has me asking for extra cuddles from C. That worry that is supremely relieved that Glenn no longer works in retail. That worry that has me checking my phone frequently to see if my parents’ recent tests were negative. And if they’re positive, what then? Will they make it? Will I have to say goodbye? Explain to the girls what is happening? Have them say goodbye? All the accounts of what happens at the end for COVID patients, how could I bear it happening to someone I love?

I wonder, then, how parents have coped in areas that have been hit harder than us. How do you continue with relentless worry? For days, weeks, months, years? Knowing that you are doing all that you can to stop this but not everyone is and still, still it can creep in and then your baby or your elderly parents or your immunocompromised partner is at such high risk? How do you continue keeping everyone safe, knowing that it might not be enough? 

Worry is exhausting.