Editorial May 15th, 2020-Corona Land plus 2 months

We are all starting to adjust to the burden of living in the new norm. As we start to see signs on the horizon of an opening up of the restrictions, we are also starting to become aware that life really will not be the same as before. We are questioning everything.

Air Travel even when it does restart is all up in the air (pun not intended), as to how frequent flights will be, will people need to go into quarantine upon arrival in another country, and will we be safe from arrivals to our airports?

There is no doubt that the State and Federal Governments have performed above expectations. This disaster was not exactly unprecedent since it happened 100 years ago with the Spanish Flu and numerous other times in the last 100 years if not as bad as the Spanish Flu of 1918-1920 era.

The speed of this disaster caught out many early affected Countries. We were lucky here in Australia but the Government actions if not taken would have seen Italy, UK, USA effects in Australia as well. We are lucky.

Going forward, in South Gippsland we appear to also be lucky in that the worst affects appear to occur in the most densely populated areas of the world and in each Country. With our sparsely distributed population we have this safeguard, but it is also quite true now that the virus is still around and as other countries have shown, relaxing the social isolation rules is leading to more cases and outbreaks.

The lesson here and one I am hearing from people in the towns is that people have changed their ways and will no longer do certain things or attend certain events for quite a while now, whilst being very careful when they do interact socially or go shopping.

Stay safe.