Yve – Week One

Yve lives in Lilydale, a suburb of Melbourne. She works as a secondary school teacher. Click here if you want to know more about Yve.

Press the play button to listen how Yve is coping with the outbreak of COVID-19, and how she hopes this pandemic will make some positive changes.

Current situation Australia 29-04-2020

The first case of COVID-19 arrived in Victoria on the 25^th of January. This patient just returned from a trip in Wuhan. Almost a month later, on the 27^th of February, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said: “We believe the risk of global pandemic is very much upon us and as a result, as a government, we need to take the steps necessary to prepare for such a pandemic”. He announced that there would be an emergency plan to deal with the outbreak of COVID-19. At this time there was already a travel ban for people who had travelled in mainland China.

The number of COVID-19 cases rose dramatically in March. From 78 cases on the 12^th of March to 877 by March 20th. This led to a lot of new rules. On March 15 anyone who arrived in Australia from overseas was forced to self-isolate for two weeks. Five days later Australia closed borders to non-residents. On the 22^nd the Prime Minister’s Office released a media statement with measures that could be in place for the next six months. Some of these new measures were:

– Pubs, licensed clubs, gyms, cinemas, hotels, restaurant, cafes, casino’s, places of worship and funerals would be closed
– If possible people should keep 1.5 meter distance between themself and others
– Restrictions on entering aged care homes
– Non-essential gathering of more than 100 people inside are not allowed

The measures helped to flatten the curve and by the end of April authorities slowly stared to ease restrictions. On the 28^th of April Bondi Beach in Sydney opened, after it was closed for a month. On the downside there was bad news about the remote education of children.

According to a number of reports that were commissioned by the Federal Education Department up to half of the Australian children and adolescents can be negatively affected because of remote learning. The report showed that more children became ‘vulnerable’, because things became harder at home due to the new measures. Watch this video if you want to know more about this (start at 4:15), or read this article.