In the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, there were 123 cases of COVID-19 detected in the ACT. More than five times that number of cases have been identified with laboratory tests since Christmas, and there are undoubtedly more circulating in the community.
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With a string of record-case days has come a new kind of incongruity: long, snaking lines for testing clinics in some parts of the city, and groups of people drinking cold beers in the midday sun, enjoying the days between Christmas and New Year's, in others.
This is the new era of personal pandemic responsibility, albeit not as Scott Morrison may have intended it. The fear of encountering the virus inadvertently in a supermarket aisle in March 2020 has given way, for most, to the inconvenience and at-home hardship of having to isolate and recover should one catch the virus. Such are the privileges of living in what is said to be the world's most vaccinated city.
But the Omicron variant of COVID-19 has taken off. It is more transmissible and the fully vaccinated are less equipped to outrun it. Canberra emerged from its spring lockdown and case numbers dropped away; now the city's fortunes have reversed.
The trouble with personal responsibility is health authorities are asking a population of non-experts to interpret a highly complex and evolving pandemic situation each day, foisting on them the choice of whether they go out or whether they stay in, whether they line up for a test or whether they ride it out.
Nor should the desire not to be pinged as a COVID contact be underestimated. Some will prefer not to know whether they have COVID, to retain a clear conscience before they travel in the next few weeks or head out on the town. Others just won't want the bother of getting tested.
The rate of cases in people aged between 18 and 44 in Canberra has shot up, overtaking that of children who were catching the virus at school. Over summer, it's these younger adults who are more likely to be working or socialising.
These 18- to 44-year-olds are also the ones who are likely to be working the jobs that cannot be done from home. Keeping the city moving as usual with a very high, and growing higher, case load is going to be an insurmountable task.
A rapidly expanding outbreak of Omicron in a highly vaccinated population may not overwhelm the intensive care unit with COVID patients, but it could very well force a large number of clinical staff into isolation and severely curtail what a hospital can do. A school is not much use if all the teachers are in isolation after being exposed to the virus in their lives outside the classroom.
Testing requirements will need to evolve. Health authorities will need to balance getting a handle on how much COVID is out there in the community with the sheer irritation of waiting for hours in line for a swab, before being sent off to isolate. Testing only works if people are willing to come along; trying their patience undermines its purpose.
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Already changes to the way ACT Health is reporting exposure sites and defining close and casual contacts hint at a more relaxed attitude to the virus circulating in the community. Identifying every single case and their precise, minute-by-minute movements is giving way to focusing on high-risk superspreader events and keeping the most vulnerable people safe.
In the meantime, there is still work to do. Children aged five to 11 need their jabs in the new year, and plenty of adults still need to get their third vaccine doses. Adjusting to living with COVID-19 in the community is not the same as throwing our hands up and saying, "Let it rip."
And don't forget people will need to make difficult choices for themselves in this new phase - weighing up whether they travel or stay put, whether they see their family and friends or don't. Is dinner in a restaurant a good idea? What about a film screening at the cinema? The health advice must be geared towards helping Canberrans make those choices, which will vary week to week.
It was a collectively difficult spring in the capital. Now it is an individually confusing, irritating, frustrating and, in new ways, difficult summer.
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