Greater Sydney marks 100 days of COVID-19 lockdown

For 100 days, families and friends were separated, businesses were closed, and people lost their livelihoods in Greater Sydney.

An outbreak that began on June 16 with a single limousine driver has now claimed the lives of more than 360 people in New South Wales and has taken millions of Australians into custody.

The state government introduced restrictions on June 26, when it became apparent that health officials had lost control of the Delta outbreak.

It has been a grueling three months for Daphne Thornton, whose partner John has dementia and lives in an elderly care facility.

Although she was granted exemptions to visit as a caregiver, she says she is still filled with heartache.

“It’s like daily torture that you don’t know how they’re doing, you can’t see them, you can’t touch them and it’s the greatest heartache to be locked up,” Ms Thornton said.

She also said ending the lockdown would be a great relief for her and many other families.

“When I can come in and say to John, ‘it’s Daphne, honey I’m here. It’s Daphne’ … and he looks up, and he holds out his hands and he smiles and says, ‘I am. ‘like’. can you want more? “

Initially, stay-at-home orders were supposed to last for two weeks – but in recent months restrictions have tightened.

Non-essential retail businesses have been closed, the construction industry has been shut down, and people have been restricted to their local government area or 3 miles from their homes, causing movements to plummet in the state.

Mobility data collected by Google shows travel in retail areas has decreased by 41 percentage points and public transport by 69 from pre-pandemic levels.

Students and their parents have struggled to learn online over the past 100 days, unsure of when to return to school.

Joshua Dela Torre, a student at HSC, is struggling not only with his homework, but his future as a dancer as well.

“As a performing arts student, not being able to dance in a studio. It was quite difficult,” said Mr. Dela Torre.

“Obviously I’m thinking about dancing in the future, but with COVID it’s kind of a reality check. Will there be enough jobs? Will I have a job at the end, after I graduate? “

Mr Dela Torre is one of many who were unable to do things they are passionate about during the lockdown.

Harvey Helou operates a barber in Bankstown and said his employees and clients have a social and emotional connection to his salon.

“When you take away someone’s job… you also take away their identity,” Mr. Helou said.

“We have people out of work for a year or more who just feel like they’ve been stripped of their identity.”

The restrictions were even more severe for residents of western and southwestern Sydney.

Some were asked to take surveillance tests, others were not allowed to leave their local government areas to work, and all faced curfews and a targeted police operation on their streets.

The loss of work has also caused financial stress for families. As of June 24, more than one million people in the state have received at least one disaster payment.

That’s nearly a quarter of the state’s workforce that had accessed $ 6.15 billion from the federal government.

Vaccinations got NSW out of lockdown, yesterday 65.2% of people aged 16 and over had received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Western Sydney University student Johnny Mardini is among hundreds of students helping the state move closer to the 70% target when more freedoms are allowed.

“Studying a bachelor’s degree in podiatry requires a lot of interaction with patients and COVID has really cut that interaction all together, all of our internships have been canceled and so on,” he said.

“Every vaccine we make is one more step towards our freedom,” Mardini said.

“It was great to be alongside all of my peers, as I usually would in college. We found the opportunity to say, ‘let’s be together, but let’s also help in another way.’

Mr Mardini resides in the local government area of ​​the Bankstown-Canterbury hotspot.

“My dad is a taxi driver so a lot of his job has been cut… so being stuck at home is really exhausting, almost,” he said.

“I’m also an outside musician on weekends too and the whole music industry has been shut down.”

However, the resilient Sydneysiders say they look forward to the simple things – a trip to the pub is on the wishlist for many.

Swagat Maharana, a computer scientist from Granville, said working from home has been incredibly lonely.

“I want to go out, meet my friends, eat out and have a drink.”

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