Perth Lockdown Diaries – Day Zero

Sunday, 31 January 2021

The news came through as we were preparing for our second attempt to get out on the Swan River. Bought in December as a birthday gift, we had turned up at Mayland’s jetty to take ourselves boating, courtesy of Nauti Picnics. Self piloted boats that you can take out without a boat licence.

Just as we arrived at the jetty on that clear December day, the heavens opened, the wind suddenly became cyclonic, and it became very clear, very quickly that we wouldn’t be boating any time soon. Drenched, in t-shirts and shorts, with the cardboard box holding our picnic quickly collapsing, we ordered an Uber and headed home.

Take two. We had booked for today and both smiled outwardly when we woke to glorious blue skies and not a whisper of a wind. Once again, the picnic was booked for 1.30pm from the excellent Chinta cafe, and we were almost ready to set off when the phone rang.

Best Laid Plans

Judging by Victoria’s expression, and the way the conversation seemed to be going, I sensed immediately that something was awry. I couldn’t have predicted what was to transpire, yet now, the inevitability of it all is starting to sink in.

After 10 months of no community transmission in West Australia, we now have our first new case of COVID19 that is not safely contained in a quarantine hotel. In fact, it has somehow escaped from one of these dedicated hotels, with a hotel worker testing positive for COVID19 overnight.

You could never accuse our Premier of being faint hearted and in a midday press conference he announced that the whole of Perth would enter a full lockdown from 6pm. Lasting for 5 days, it would run through to next Friday at 6pm. Perfect timing to celebrate with a pint in the local pub if you ask me. I am not sure Mark McGowan is feeling quite as confident.

Toilet Roll Tales

Rather predictably, but a sad indictment of how humanity sometimes behaves, panic buying immediately ensued. The queues for Woolworths were like we had seen in the first throes of the pandemic, back in March last year. What do people do with all that toilet roll?

Rather more pressing for us, as we had done our big shop that morning and had already bought toilet roll for the week, we needed to buy a couple of face masks as they had been made mandatory for the lockdown period. The first time this has happened in Perth.

Both local pharmacies had sold out, and there was no chance of us getting into Woolworths any time soon. Without a mask we would be unable to leave the house for my morning coffee, or for the designated 1 hour daily exercise. This was one occasion that social media proved useful. A member of a local Facebook group indicated quite late in the evening that the local IGA now had some in stock. I have never changed out of my pyjamas as fast, and by 9pm we had a supply of masks, albeit at an exorbitant mark up. 

What Happens Next?

We had negotiated the start of the lockdown, but what would the rest of the week bring, we wondered?