The failure by the ACT and NSW governments to unveil back-to-school plans - as was promised - on Friday has left hundreds of thousands of parents, teachers and children across the region in limbo as the clock ticks down to the start of Term 1.
Schools are due to resume in the ACT on January 31. The resumption date in NSW is even sooner, on Friday, January 28.
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This lack of clarity and detail marks a significant failure on the part of both governments. It is the same type of "non-decision", arising from a lack of foresight and planning, that saw the West Australian Premier Mark McGowan flip-flop on Thursday on his longstanding commitment to reopen his state on February 5.
That, like what has just happened - or not happened - with schools in the ACT and NSW has thrown the plans of countless people into disarray.
On this side of the continent working families are already battling to keep up with ever changing isolation requirements, a high likelihood of catching the virus, and a chronic shortage of the rapid antigen tests they must have in order to prove they can come to work if they are an essential worker who is also a primary contact. They now don't even know if they will be required to conduct home schooling just over a week from today.
This is disappointing and difficult to understand since even before schools broke up in 2021 it was widely known Omicron was spreading wild.
While there have been assurances that classroom teaching will be available for the children of essential workers, National Cabinet's decision not to extend that definition to the other sectors recommended by the Australian Health Professionals Principal Committee a fortnight ago has left millions of families across the country to their own devices.
While NSW, Victoria, and Tasmania have said testing of students and teachers using RAT kits would be an integral part of their back-to-school plans, Canberra's parents, teachers and students are not yet sure enough tests will be around for their in-person return on day one.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr has now promised free tests will be provided in schools, but without certainty of supply he has delayed any commitment to a return on time until at least early next week. How these tests will be used remains a big question.
It has been reported that if the ACT follows a surveillance model being proposed in other states, with two tests per student per week, it would go through 116,000 RATs every seven days. That's almost 1.2 million tests per 10-week term. Even more would be needed to cover school staff.
The ACT government has placed orders for about 1.6 million rapid antigen tests since the start of the year. Of the 62,000 that have been delivered to date almost 45,000 have been used at COVID-19 testing clinics. There is certainly no stockpile to fall back on.
An unfortunate consequence of the growing number of planning failures at federal, state, and territory level is that members of the public are becoming increasingly sceptical about the bushels of "information" being released by governments.
It is hard to believe the great and the good are on top of the crisis when much of what they say and do seems further and further removed from people's lived experience.
The federal government's pledge to fund 50 per cent of the cost of non-existent rapid tests falls into this category. So does Dominic Perrottet's assertion that Omicron is peaking across the border at a time when the daily death toll is soaring and the test figures are even more rubbery than a pre-election budget forecast.
People want and deserve more certainty.
