COVID-19 Archives - Page 2 of 4

Doom scrolling vs Good News Week

doom-scrolling-good-news — Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

Today we’ll be talking about ‘doom scrolling’ and our addiction to negative news, even though we know how bad it is for the psyche.

Despite complaining about the doom and gloom fed to us through the media, we can’t quite get enough of it. Psychological studies have shown that people’s brains have a bias towards negative or sensational news. So even today, in the time of CovidNSW – The Rising, we leap upon the latest bad news – Gladys vs Dan, etc.

It seems to matter not if we (a) don’t live in NSW (b) have had our first or second shot or (c) have that Aussie character trait that says “F*** you, I’m fireproof.”

One of the drivers of the news-consuming business is what’s known in social media as FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).

News consumption has changed so much from the 1990s through to 2021 it is hard to make comparisons. We’ve always had the tabloid press and its TV equivalent and their blitz, ban, shock horror headlines.

Those of you who have a smart phone and/or a tablet will know the phrase ‘doom-scrolling’. This describes interminable flicking from one disastrous story to another, with few opportunities to absorb positive news.

The bad news is dominated by those daily 11am briefings when the Premier of the day reports the latest Covid active cases. Do we really need to know? Sure, New South Wales has a recurrence of Covid, and this time it is the highly contagious Delta variation.

But do we really have to tune in to the live press conferences on morning TV? I mean, who does that?

Well, probably many of the 11,682 people who told the Census in 2016 they use Auslan (sign language) to communicate.

Since the media began doing live crosses and 24/7 coverage of disasters (floods, bushfires, pandemics), an Auslan interpreter has been part of State government live press conferences. This may well be because Deaf Australia is an influential lobby group. This year, they have convinced the Australian Bureau of Statistics to include Auslan as a language spoken at home. So the 2021 Census may eventually reveal that the number of people who use and understand sign language is more like 20,000. I’m a bit fascinated so sometimes mute the audio and try to figure out what’s happening by watching the Auslan dude. It’s a skill. (The sign for a coal miner was a revelation. Ed)

While the 24/7 news cycle is wholly preoccupied with Covid news (with an occasional glance over to Afghanistan), some media outlets are starting to provide respite.

The ABC recently started including three or four stories at the end of its online newsfeed labelled ‘Good News’.

This is where I found out about a tiny community in South Australia (Venus Bay) which planned to buy a 100 acre block and restore it to wetlands and bush. At the time the story was posted (June) locals were prepared to put in $1,500 each.

The alternative is the land will be sold to a developer and become a golf course. (Remember when Maleny residents raised enough money to buy the block near Obi Obi creek but the owners reneged on the deal? Ed)

There is absolutely no downside to the Venus Bay story (apart for the developer, who may not get to fulfil his plans for the land).

The lesson is, as you are doom scrolling through the ABC’s online newsfeed (Police get tough on anarchists planning second Sydney lockdown protest), eventually you will get to Good News. In fact, you can customise the newsfeed so Good News is elevated to the top.

It’s not hard to find uplifting news stories. But it is much harder to convince news editors to give them a run.

Once, when I had aspirations to be an education reporter, I suggested we should send a reporter and photographer out to Chinchilla. Why? Well, four Year 12 students had received an OP1, the top academic score in the land.

What a great human interest story, I said, particularly if one or more of these kids was from a humble background. But no, at the time (and maybe still), education stories tended to focus on the negative.

Sometimes I wonder what happened to those four brainy kids. My idea of journalism would have been to write that story, then revisit it, 10 or 20 years down the track.

The Guardian’s Stephen Pinker found that the key problem is that positive and negative news stories unfold on different timelines. The news is now more like a play by play sports commentary (Ed: with similar inanities uttered at inappropriate times).

“Whether or not the world really is getting worse, the nature of news will interact with the nature of cognition to make us think that it is.” Pinker wrote in 2017.

“Bad things can happen quickly, but good things aren’t built in a day, and as they unfold, they will be out of sync with the news cycle.”

He quoted peace researcher John Galtung who opined that if a newspaper came out once every 50 years, it would ignore celebrity gossip and political scandals and instead report “momentous global changes such as the increase in life expectancy.”

As things stand now, plane crashes always make the news. Car crashes, which kill far more people, almost never do. Likewise, tornadoes and cyclones make for better television, even if they kill far fewer people than, say, asthma.

As ‘The Conversation’ found, multiple studies have shown that too much exposure to bad news can aggravate depression and anxiety. It can even bring on post traumatic stress syndrome in vulnerable people.

This is particularly so after major crises such as 9/11, the Australian bushfires or the Covid pandemic, where online news consumers can view stories and videos over and over.

The Guardian’s assertion that the media exaggerate news events for dramatic purposes can be illustrated by events in Sydney last weekend. The Australian media provided hyperbolic reports about people flouting the Sydney lockdown rules. While we who follow the advice are suitably outraged, She Who Also Doom Scrolls estimates that the 3,500 people who attended the ‘freedom’ rally represent just 0.07% of Greater Sydney’s population.

As part of what appears to be a coordinated global protest, people also gathered in Brisbane’s Botanic Gardens. Wait, we’re not in lockdown! Oh, you mean some of them believe the Covid vaccine is a de-population plot?

In France, President Macron has vowed to crack down on people who refuse to be vaccinated or protest about lockdowns.

Macron, if you remember, is something of a hard-liner. He was speaking after 160,000 people protested in France about a controversial new Covid pass that allows people who have been vaccinated to visit restaurants. France has also made it mandatory for health workers to be vaccinated.

Many marchers shouted ‘liberty’, saying that the government shouldn’t tell them what to do.

Macron urged national unity and asked, “What is your freedom worth if you say to me ‘I don’t want to be vaccinated,’ but tomorrow you infect your father, your mother or myself?”

I doubt that any of us will change our media consumption habits as a result of my asking the question. Nevertheless, here’s a few links to happy cat-rescued-from-a-tree stories and this unforgettable satirical song (Good News Week), by Hedgehoppers Anonymous.

Don’t shoot the messenger.

https://www.positive.news/environment/conservation/beavers-arent-being-released-in-london-but-theyll-be-in-the-capital-soon/

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/need-some-good-news-for-a-change-top-5-good-news-web-sites/

Lasagne and the Covid lockdown

lasagne-covid-lockdown — Image: Angelo Rosa, www.pixabay.com

So what does the New South Wales Covid lockdown mean for restaurants and cafes, some of which may have been planning for National Lasagne Day.

This week, New South Wales was declared a Covid red zone, with active cases more than doubling from the previous week. As of today, NSW had 916 active cases, 880 of which were locally acquired.

A broad swathe of restrictions aimed at bringing the outbreak under control means that Greater Sydney’s thousands of pubs, clubs, restaurants and cafes are very much in a holding pattern. There’s no end in sight to the lockdown ending. So they will have their hands full paying the bills, never mind planning for a special foodie day.

If you had never heard of it, National Lasagne Day (July 29) is a US celebration, a nod to the 5.5 million Italian migrants who found their way to the Big Apple and other cities since the 1800s. Currently, there are 2.2 million Italians living in the US, the majority of whom live in New York. So it is not difficult to find Italian restaurants or cafes, all of which are likely to have lasagne on the menu. And who hasn’t eaten the rich creamy dish with its layers of pasta sheets, interwoven with tomatoes, cheese, vegetables and meat sauce.

When we go out to eat, I am known for being unadventurous. If it’s not fish and chips it will be lasagne – ask anyone.

Which reminds me of the time in a Dublin pub when I decided I’d ordered haddock and chips one too many times.

“What does the lasagne come with?” I asked the waitress.

“Oh, the lasagne?” she said with a Dubliner’s lilt. “That’ll be coming with rice and chips and salad…but we haven’t got any.”

The website <www.nationalday.com> observes that lasagne first showed up in Naples, Italy during the Middle Ages. The dish made its way to America with the first Italian immigrants in the 19^th century. This article in La Gazetta Italiano clears up a few myths about Italian food in the US. For example, only one third of food sold in the US as ‘Italian’ is imported from Italy.The remainder have Italian names, but they are not the real deal.

My Dad (the baker) scoffed at Italian food like pizzas. When the younger generation were planning to phone up and order pizzas he would claim (with a guttural Scots Och), that he could make a family sized pizza with meat toppings for about $2.

“What! $24 for a slice of bread in a cardboard box? Awa ye go.”

I might be recklessly paraphrasing the long-departed baker, but he is right to observe that Italian food is, in the main, highly profitable.

Of course, it depends on the reliability of suppliers, staff and other small business variables, not the least of which is rent. For even small shops in Sydney suburban high streets, rent is undoubtedly the single biggest expense.

So you have to feel sorry for bars, restaurants and cafes adversely affected by the current lockdown in Greater Sydney.

The one advantage is that Italian food is favoured by those who order takeaway foods. In 2019-2020, one pizza company alone (Domino’s), sold 105.6m pizzas, through 833 stores in Australia and New Zealand.

As numerous articles like this one in Fortune have observed, the home delivered food business boomed during Covid in 2020, Of course, one has to balance the reporting of an up-tick in takeaway/delivery pizza business against the revenue lost from in-house diners.

I was musing about this and that while waiting for our meals to arrive at the Yangan Hotel, a local watering hole outside Warwick. We shared the dining room with two other groups at separate tables. No one wore masks and (gasp) I broke tradition and ordered rissoles. (We did, however, have to sign in with the ubiquitous ‘App’. Ed)

Queensland is handling the Covid cases it does have in a responsible manner. We have 48 active cases and only one new case in the last 24 hours.

So not surprisingly, except for South-East Queensland, we no longer have to wear masks when going out, although I notice some people still do. We are (still) in the lucky country part of the country, with a major community festival starting in Warwick on Friday and all eateries open for sit-down catering.

In NSW, the lockdown rules are detailed and unambiguous for the food and drink hospitality industry; you can open, but only to sell takeaways or deliveries. But as Restaurant and Catering Association chief executive Wes Lambert told news.com,au. not all businesses can switch to takeaway and delivery service. He said small businesses were the most vulnerable to the lockdown, with some 93% of food service industry businesses turning over less than $38,500 a week.

The Australian Retailers Association urged consumers to keep their essential shopping to a minimum. The ARA said in a press release that while retail stores were open, shoppers should take up digital options like click and collect.

“Every dollar you spend keeps someone in a job. It doesn’t matter if that purchase is made in a store or over the internet,” chief executive Paul Zhara said.

Domino’s Pizza Enterprises say the competition during lockdowns has been all about carry-out vs delivery.

“Throughout Australia we’re allowed to do both at the moment, but consumer preferences have been changing (and is a global phenomenon).”

Domino’s Group managing director Don Meij said that COVID-19 had brought forward long-term demand for delivered food, ordered on-line, in all markets.

“At the same time, carry-out orders remain challenged in most markets, as specific customer segments (including CBD office lunches) have changed their ordering behaviour.”

Back in Queensland, which has just announced that the New South Wales border is closing at 1am Saturday, it’s otherwise business more or less as usual. The local coastal economies are about to get an unexpected boost after the National Rugby League (NRL) made the momentous decision of moving nine Sydney-based and three other regional teams to Queensland.

This decision will deliver a big pay-day to the hand-picked accommodation outlets which become the teams’ bases for two months and maybe longer.

Hopefully, players, staff and families (if/when the latter are allowed to travel here) will weigh in and support small business while they are here. Can you imagine south-east Queensland’s Italian eateries and their couriers coping with 500+ takeaway orders for lasagne on July 29?

Importantly, National Lasagne Day is the day before we set off (with masks) to Suncorp Stadium for the Broncos’ epic clash with the Queensland Cowboys. So they’ll all have 24 hours to sleep off that big dose of carbohydrates (assuming it comes with rice, chips and salad).

Or they (the Broncos) could be like jockeys trying to make a lightweight ride and pick away at a green salad.

Yep, that’ll happen.

FOMM back pages

Last week: No, I was not imagining the ghost of Pete Best in the reference to the ‘Famous Five” crossing Abbey Road. My Enid Blyton childhood blinded me.

Queuing up for the Covid vaccination

Suddenly, getting your Covid vaccination is becoming a hot ticket item on social media. By that I mean ‘normal’ social media posts from people who actually believe in the science. I got my first shot last Thursday evening, 35 minutes later than the allotted time, but hey, I’m retired. I can watch Antique Roadshow later on catch-up.

I spent the time sitting in a packed waiting room with 50-60 other people in my age group (70+). I traded witticisms with a couple of people who seemed sceptical, but all the same sat and waited to be called.

Once I’d been injected (by my own doctor, no less), a nurse stuck a green sticker on my shirt and told me to ‘sit-stay’ for 15 minutes, to make sure I didn’t have any adverse reactions.

I came back out and sat next to a man who had previously been saying things about the government and their ‘jab campaign’.

“So is Bill Gates tracking us now?”

Apart from a slightly sore arm, it’s just another vaccination to add to the certificate from Medicare which lists them all from 2017. I didn’t even know they were doing that until I noticed an email when logged in to MyGov.

The Covid vaccination rollout may have been on the agenda for talks between Prime Minister Scott Morrison and NZ’s PM, Jacinda Ardern, but the media focused on other issues.

Morrison, who in April claimed Australia was ahead of NZ, has come in for trenchant criticism over the government’s handling of the vaccination rollout. The debate continues about the government’s decision to restrict the Pfizer vaccine to people aged under 50. The reasoning behind this decision is that the AstraZenica vaccine (for the over-50s), which has been linked to a rare clotting disorder, is too risky for younger people.

The online news source ‘The Conversation’ sent out a well-researched piece this week asking was it possible to ‘mix and match’ vaccines.

The premise of research out of Germany is that allowing people to have, say AstraZenica for the first shot and another brand for the second is to speed up the vaccination programme when it stalls due to a vaccine stock shortage

It makes sense to allow the general population to have whatever vaccine is available at the time. But talk of risks and side effects may only serve to increase what is known as ‘vaccine hesitancy’.

The government’s chief medical adviser Brendan Murphy told a Four Corners investigation last week that vaccine hesitancy was having an impact.

“We would have expected at this stage to have had a greater uptake because we’ve now got 5,000 points of primary care presence and we are supplying excess vaccine and we have seen a slight flattening, when we expected growth.”

But Professor Murphy said much of the blame lay with the media.

“I think the biggest impact on hesitancy is, frankly, sensationalist media reporting.”

“We want to be transparent, but we want people to understand that the risk of this blood clot is really tiny, and if you’re a vulnerable person, the risk of severe COVID is high.”

Apropos of which, perhaps, a few weeks ago we started binge-watching Season 17 of the long-running medical soap. Grey’s Anatomy. Despite cries of derision from the gallery (it’s a textbook, isn’t it?), Grey’s is the 8^th longest-running primetime TV series. A long way behind The Simpsons (32) and Law & Order – Special Victlms’ Unit (22), but not bad for a series labelled – ‘opera, melodrama and medical procedures’.

I’d best not reveal too many spoilers for fans of Grey’s who have not yet discovered it on the Disney Channel. I had to register for adult content to watch this series, so careful is Disney about protecting kids from M or R-rated content. There’s not too much spicy action in sex scenes which are more about the before and after. But the well-researched scripts are full of what censors call ‘adult themes’ including sex trafficking, drug addiction, psychiatric disorders and patients presenting with the most complex (and gruesome) medical emergencies.

What is illuminating about Season 17 is the setting (Seattle 2020) with all episodes so far completely immersed in the emergence of Covid and its effect on frontline medical staff.

Executive producer and chief writer Shonda Rhimes has a lot to say through the characters about the disproportionate affect of Covid on black people (poor black people specifically), often living in overcrowded conditions.

It’s no accident Rhimes is known for a social conscience – in 2019 she was involved in a campaign with Michele Obama and others to encourage people to vote in the 2020 presidential election.

Rhimes and her Grey’s Anatomy star, Ellen Pompeo, have been with the show from the start. Pompeo, now 51, shares credits in Season 17 as a producer, as well as remaining as the main actor/narrator.

Pompeo is also one of America’s highest paid actors, earning $19 million a year from syndication rights and her $550,000 per episode salary.

You might recall Grey’s Anatomy (which, BTW, is a famous textbook on human anatomy first published in 1858), getting a panning in this blog. We focused on the now-infamous opera episode, where the story was told in song, over operating tables and in hot sweaty linen cupboard clinches.

This is called ‘jumping the shark’ in TV series’ parlance and usually points to writers and producers running out of ideas.

We let some seasons go by and tuned in again about series 15 when you could watch it on catch-up.

Our bizarre attachment to medical soaps aside, I feel some degree of social responsibility to warn that we have some way to go with the goal of vaccinating all Australians against Covid-19 by October (which October?). Not the least of it is the constant presence on social media of anti-vaxxer scare campaigns, most of them debunked long ago.

It’s not just Australians who are hesitant.

Nature Magazine published a survey of 13,426 people in October 2020 indicating that 71.2% of respondents were willing to be vaccinated against Covid-19 if it were proven safe and effective.

“The far-from-universal willingness to accept a COVID-19 vaccine is a cause for concern. Countries where acceptance exceeded 80% tended to be Asian nations with strong trust in central governments (China, South Korea and Singapore)”.

In April, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) published a survey of 1,090 people which found just 43% of Australians thought the rollout was being done efficiently (down from 63% in March). About 63% thought it was being done safely, down from 73%; and just over half (52%) were confident the vaccines will be effective at stopping COVID-19.

The slow rollout and changes to the plan also appear to have given rise to vaccine hesitancy. One in six people (16%) said they would never get vaccinated against COVID-19, up from 12% in March. It’s a small sample, but nonetheless a demonstration of how confidence in the administration has waned during the vaccine rollout.

Meanwhile the Covid vaccination tally is two for two in this household. Tip from a friend – ask for a lollypop afterwards!

FNQ Tourism Relying On Domestic Visitors

tourism-FNQ-covid — Sunset swimmers inside stinger net at Palm Cove. Photo by Bob Wilson

The old saying that you could fire a gun in the main street and not hit anybody certainly applied to Cairns on the May Day public holiday. We rolled into Cairns, far north Queensland’s biggest city, believing we would struggle to find a car park. Turning into Sheridan Street, we spotted an RV Parking sign. Once we’d picked a shady spot in the deserted car park (six cars and a motor home), we went to meet a friend for lunch in the CBD.

“They’re closed – c u at ‘Sauce’ down road” our friend texted.

We had just arrived at the first rendezvous to be told by a waitress the restaurant was closing (at noon!).

Just down the road, the boutique brewery and bar ‘Sauce’ was open and serving meals. Only a few customers there too, so before long we were tucking in to coral trout, chips and salad and other dishes.

It was hard to reconcile the deserted CBD with the image of Cairns as a magnet for international and domestic tourists. Trouble is, visitors from overseas have been absent since March 2020. Domestic travellers tend to arrive at the airport, hire a car and head for the Daintree, the Cape or the Atherton Tablelands. We’d just been staying on the Tablelands and found, on a Sunday walk around Lake Eacham, that half of Australia had decided to do the same thing. Travel stats for the May long weekend may take some time to surface, but it would be great if it emulated the region’s Easter experience. The ABC reported that more than 70,000 flew into Cairns and spread themselves around FNQ (Port Douglas resorts reported 90% occupancy).

After lunch in Cairns on May Day, we met up with the extended family at a resort in Palm Cove. My niece, a Cairns local, did not think it peculiar that the city would be deserted on a public holiday,

“We north Queenslanders take our public holidays seriously!”

Just for sport, I googled accommodation in Palm Cove for May 3 and found only three options – two of which were $900+ for an overnight stay in a three-bedroom apartment. Good thing SWPR booked our caravan spot months ago.

After checking in, I strolled along the beach, observing the swimmers taking advantage of the stinger net. Signs abound warning of marine stingers and crocodiles (which have been sighted swimming in the ocean). Our local source informed me the stinger ‘season’ now spans October to May, which probably explains why FNQ’s peak tourism season is June to September.

Marine stingers have been responsible for 63 deaths since records began in the 19^th century. In the most recent case, a teenager from Bamaga was killed by a box jellyfish. Hundreds of people get stung every year, so the warning signs that abound at FNQ beaches should not be taken lightly.

A quick stroll around the Cairns CBD reveals the damage inflicted by the Covid-19 pandemic and associated restrictions. There are lots of empty shops with ‘for lease’ signs on the windows.

The story of how Covid-19 decimated Cairns’ tourism industry is partially revealed in passenger arrival data kept by Cairns Airport Pty Ltd. For example, only 300 international passengers arrived in Cairns in March 2021, compared with 22,619 in March 2020. Domestic visitor numbers held up, however, with 185,109 passengers in March 2021, compared with 181,307 in March 2020.

Cairns Council statistics show 799,000 international visitors visited the far north in 2019, as did 1.1 million domestic tourists. A report to Cairns Council showed how Covid travel restrictions affected Tourism Tropical North Queensland’s activities in 2020. More than $2.2 billion of visitor spending was lost – $1.6 billion of in domestic visitor expenditure and $650 million lost due to international border closures.The Federal government recently sought to help the tourism sector by introducing airfare subsidies. The Queensland government did its bit by offering $200 travel vouchers to encourage domestic tourism.

Tourism Tropical North Queensland chief executive Mark Olsen told Brisbane Times that if FNQ could secure its share of the subsidised airfares, an extra 5,000 to 7,000 visitors could land each week and inject up to $1 million a day to the local economy.

On our slow road trip from southern Queensland to the tropical north, we have seen plenty of evidence to suggest Australians are replacing international travel with forays to the outback and the far north.

A recent survey by KPMG found that Australians had been saving hard during the pandemic and domestic travel was No. 1 on their bucket lists. Some 61% of respondents planned a trip between January and June 2021 and 72% planned a domestic holiday between July and December 2021. KPMG noted that people would have accrued leave during the lockdown periods. This meant they now have the time and the money for domestic travel. The challenge will be to convince those of us with the wanderlust to spend 70% of what we spent on international travel in 2019 (or whatever year we last went abroad) on domestic travel.

Tourism Australia leaves us in no doubt of the importance of tourism to our economy. The total spend by tourists in 2019 was $126.1 billion, $45.4 billion of which was attributed to international tourism, with 9.3 million people flying into Australia in 2018-2019. Almost half of the overnight spend (44%) was in regional Australia. In 2019 the industry employed 666,000 people. JobKeeper may well have salvaged some of those jobs, but where tourism goes from here is anybody’s guess.

Our family convoy has done its bit for the sector, paying for accommodation and meals in Palm Cove. Yesterday some paid $255 a head to go for a reef cruise while me and the Bro’ drove to the Daintree and spent about $50 a head.

This weekend we’re heading to Cooktown with a side tour to Laura to explore Indigenous art and culture. Then it’s a slow 10-day trip home via Canarvon Gorge. For all of the modelling in KPMG’s report, I doubt very much we would spend 70% of our budget for Canada and Europe where we travelled in 2010.

A few notes on last week’s commentary on Australia’s most dangerous critters. The photo was not a blue ringed octopus as we suspected, but it aptly illustrated the story. Also, while I did mention five deaths attributed to paralysis ticks, they were not included in the list and maybe they should be. This link is for Michael, who made the point, and anyone who might have missed this 2017 post.

People who have never heard of mammalian meat allergy think it must be fake news. It is not! We personally know three people who can no longer indulge in the Sunday roast lamb..

https://bobwords.com.au/scary-truth-paralysis-tick/

Book book, read it, read it

Two days into a five-week pilgrimage to far North Queensland and back, I ran out of suitable reading material. I’d rapidly consumed two of the three crime thrillers acquired for the journey and gave up on the Jonathan Kellerman when the body count reached four in the first dozen pages. She Who Reads Literature meanwhile snaffled the collection of short stories by Annie Proulx I borrowed from the library.

When I discover a new writer, I usually binge-read two or three, which in this case was John Sandford’s series about an unlikely detective, Virgil Flowers. I warmed to Flowers, as he is portrayed warts and all, which in his case is a serious viral outbreak. He lies, bullies suspects, intimidates witnesses, ignores his superiors and, as with all maverick cops, goes about his dodgy investigative business with seeming impunity.

He’s a lanky fellow with long hair and a habit of wearing surfer attire (jeans and rock music themed T-shirts). As with many private eye/rogue detective characters (created by male writers), Virgil thinks he is God’s gift to women. When you consider the outlandish plot of the first Flowers novel, Dark of the Moon, and an ever-rising body count, it’s a wonder Virgil can find time for a hamburger, never mind a woman. When he’s on the trail of drug dealers, psychos, murderers and dog nappers in the State of Minnesota, he sometimes goes days with little sleep. He is a dogged investigator with a dark sense of humour, but so often misses obvious clues you feel like yelling – “Nooo, Virgil – behind you!”

Crime thrillers and spy novels are my preferred genre, although I delve into literary fiction if I can find a writer who knows how to craft a narrative and invent believable dialogue.

I have read a few books by Annie Proulx, whose recent book Bark Skins has been turned into an online TV series. Kaui Hart Hemmings (The Descendants, The Possibilities), was a revelation. SWRL and I both like Richard Flanagan (although agreeing that Gould’s Book of Fish was impenetrable).

I’ve read everything the superlative Canadian author Michael Crummey has written thus far. His historical fiction is usually set in Newfoundland, so to engage, one ought to have a passing familiarity with the Maritime Provinces. Crummey’s narrative flair, descriptive skills and occasional poetic flourishes keep the reader deeply engaged. Try River Thieves as an example of his fine writing.

In pursuit of a worthwhile holiday read (sans serial killers), I discovered a novel (long-listed for the Booker prize), by UK writer Max Porter, whose brilliant debut, Grief is the Thing with Feathers, won awards. The follow-up, Lanny, was available on Amazon for US$8.99. Armed with less than reliable WiFi in the coastal towns of Agnes Water/Seventeen Seventy, I managed to download it.

Now I can go from here to Cairns (probably via an inland detour), with an unorthodox book which is both intriguing and beautifully written.

SWRL sometimes asks why I read “violent, icky stuff”. I’m not alone. A survey commissioned by the Australia Council found that 49% of participants nominated crime novels as their favourite genre. Next came historical fiction (36%), contemporary literary fiction (33%) and science fiction/fantasy (32%).

The Australia Council partnered with Macquarie University on this three-year research project: ‘The Australian Book Industry: Authors, Publishers and Readers in a Time of Change’.

The survey revealed that Australians read more than three books per month and spend five hours reading books each week. Frequent readers report reading six books per month and almost eleven hours reading books, with 80% of their reading time devoted to reading for pleasure. Does this sound like you?Another key finding that concurs with my experience is that readers are mixing new digital options with conventional ways of reading.

Australians value locally written books and the Australian book industry. Considering that the dominant genre is crime and mystery fiction, Australian authors stand out in this department. The late Peter Temple turned out nine well plotted thrillers that deservedly won major awards.He is best known for inventing Jack Irish, an accidental investigator, well portrayed in the TV series by Guy Pierce.

Temple has a worthy successor as Australia’s No 1 crime writer in Mornington Peninsula-based author Garry Disher, who has also written non-crime fiction and books for young people. He has a strong view about the crime novel (he has written 20).

He told The Age he believes the reading public is embracing good crime novels because they feed a hunger for engagement with social issues not being met by literary fiction. “Many literary novels are inward-looking or backward-looking,” he says. “They don’t engage with Australia as it is now.”

Interesting that Disher said this in 2008, because in the interim, there’s been an upsurge of interest in Australian ‘noir’. Former journalist Jane Harper’s novel The Dry was a best-seller and has already been adapted for the big screen starring Eric Bana and a cast of familiar faces.

Since today’s missive introduces you to authors you may not know, 66% of readers discover a new book/author by word of mouth recommendations. Browsing in bookstores is still popular, with second-hand outlets the third most popular source. These three methods far outweigh sources of information one might assume to be ranked higher. For example, writers’ festivals (6%) and book clubs (5%) are well down the list.

I took heart from the survey’s finding that just as many people borrow books from a public library as those who buy them. I was forced to delve into the e-reader when public libraries closed in 2020 due to Covid restrictions. Now that the worst has passed (or has it?), let’s quote the epidemiologist who said there is a low risk of contracting Covid when borrowing a library book. By all means wipe the cover, he said, but the virus can only live for a few hours on such a surface. And don’t listen to those who recommend putting library books in the microwave. It will make the pages curl and your microwave will smell funny.

Civica’s 2020 Libraries Index (based on 38 million books borrowed from 90 Australian and New Zealand libraries), revealed that 12 of the top 20 borrowed books were by Australian authors. Lianne Moriarty’s Nine Perfect Strangers was No 1. Two Jane Harper thrillers were in the top 20, as was Trent Dalton’s disarming Boy Swallows Universe.

Readers borrowed more audio books and e-books following forced closure of libraries. The lockdown also saw the advent of neighbourhood street libraries, just one of the ways in which Covid restrictions led to inclusive community activities.

The social etiquette for street libraries is the same as second-hand book exchanges in caravan parks – take a book and leave one in its place. The caravan park where we are staying for a few days before venturing a little further north has such a collection in the office (they are usually found in the laundry). It’s typical fare, including Janet Evanovich, Tom Clancy, James Patterson, four Jodi Picoult novels and (gasp) a hardback copy of Ian Molly A bio, ‘The never-ending story’.

Sigh, If only I’d had a book to swap.

Antarctica or Bust.

antarctica-penguins-icebergs — Antarctica photos contributed by JH

For most people who like to travel, Antarctica is probably not on the list of places they aspire to visit. I say that because, although visitor numbers to the frozen continent have risen 50% in recent years, the numbers are tiny on the mass tourism scale.

People with some curiosity about the seventh continent can satisfy it by reading books or viewing any of these recommended documentaries.

Armchair travel obviously did not do it for the 73, 991 people who took a tour to Antarctica in the summer of 2019-2020.

For many people, following in the footprints of Scott and Shackleton is more than a bucket list item. For them, touring the South, snapping multiple photos of penguins and albatross or kayaking in the path of mighty icebergs, is a lifetime ambition.

A family member, John, realised a long-held ambition in 2017 when visiting Antarctica with his wife and daughter. On the 21-day cruise, the ship re-traced the voyage of Ernest Shackleton. In 1914, the explorer crossed from South Shetland Island to South Georgia. He and a five-man crew then set off on foot, the first crossing of the island. The latter day tour included stopping at Shackleton’s grave and toasting him with Irish whiskey. Some comments from their tour:

“Each day we’d go ashore in the morning and view seal and penguin colonies.

“We also visited an old whaling station where they carried out whaling on an industrial scale.

“After South Georgia we sailed to the Ross Sea, but we didn’t get very far because of large icebergs. We were constantly changing course to avoid them.”

Icebergs ahoy

Antarctica does not belong to any one nation, so no visa is required to visit. However your country of residence must be a signatory to the Antarctica Treaty. It’s a long way to travel, expensive, and there is no direct route.

Most tourists do it with a combination of air and cruise or cargo ship travel. One common route is Brisbane-Sydney-Ushuaia (a southern Argentinian resort town and port), then by ship to Antarctica. As an alternative to the return journey, adventurers may travel from the Ross Sea to Invercargill/Bluff in New Zealand then fly to their home base from there.

The travel advisory for Antarctica is currently at level two (exercise increased caution). Just how many people travel to the continent between November 2021 and March 2022 depends on the status of the pandemic.

US citizens (who comprise 34% of visitors), will need to prove they are Covid-free before re-entering the US. This may or may not be a deterrent.

Antarctica expeditions are probably out for Australians this year, given a ban on leaving the country for other than compelling reasons. Likewise, Argentina has a travel ban in place, which makes it difficult for many tours that use the South American country as a launching pad.

A writer friend, Dale Lorna Jacobsen (left), first travelled to Antarctica in 2013. She was one of 25,284 visitors who set foot on land that summer. On her return she wrote a book, Why Antarctica: a Ross Sea Odyssey, which chronicles the fulfilment of a childhood dream.

“When I told my friends I was finally going to Antarctica, the most common question was: ‘Why Antarctica?’. I didn’t bother replying. You either ‘get’ Antarctica, or you don’t. If you do, there is no need to ask. If you don’t, words could not explain why.

I have been fascinated by the 7^th continent since, at the age of eight, I discovered the existence of a place filled with mountains, ice, snow and wild weather; all the things I love.

My first expedition was in 2013, and incorporated a 32-day semi-circumference from the Peninsula to the Ross Sea. A dream come true for an Antarcticophile, getting to step into the historic huts of Shackleton and Scott; walking for hours in the Taylor Dry Valley. I knew one trip would never be enough. I returned in 2016 on an action-packed 12 days, camping in a bivvy bag on the ice; snow-shoeing; kayaking. Then in 2017 I repeated the 32-day semi-circumference.

I am chuffed to say that the ANARE (Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions) Club commissioned me to write the memoir of Centenarian, John Russell OAM, who still loves telling tales of how he and nine other Aussies were first ashore to set up Mawson Base in 1954.”

Dale produced a companion book of photographs to her first book. I bought mine as an E-book, files tucked away inside the USB body of a cute rubber penguin!

You have to assume there will always be ‘Antarticophiles’ like Dale and John, passionate about visiting and even re-visiting the South. It will be interesting to see what authorities do when visitor numbers inevitably creep towards 100,000.

The Antarctic Southern Oceans Coalition (ASOC) says the number of visitors has been doubling every couple of years, along with the establishment of “mass tourism destinations”.

The US leads the pack in terms of visitor numbers (18,942), followed by China 8,149 and Australia 5,077 (2018-2019).

Paul Ward’s website CoolAntarctica is a trove of information about the frozen continent. We sourced some of the visitor information from this site. Ward notes the ban after 2008-2009 on cruise ships carrying 500 passengers or more. Large cruise ships were spending two or three days in Antarctic waters, often as part of a broader cruise, but not landing.

“These large ships were a great concern as an incident involving an oil or fuel spill from them would have been very significant,” Ward writes.

“Any kind of rescue or evacuation would also have been very difficult, owing to the large numbers of people on board”.

The global pandemic was just emerging as the 2019-2020 tourism season came to an end. The next cruise season, still seven months away, is likely to attract even more visitors to the South, Covid-19 restrictions not withstanding.

The International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO) plays a pivotal role in ensuring its members adhere to environmental and safety protocols. Formed in 1991, it requires all members to abide by the Antarctic Treaty. Cruise ships co-ordinate with each other to ensure than no more than 100 people are onshore at a landing site at the same time.

Despite these precautions, there are signs the continent may be at risk of being over-loved. Scientific studies have identified human interaction as one possible cause of sickness in Emperor penguins.

The Science Magazine published an article in 2018 based on research by a team of scientists from Spain. They discovered the effect of reverse zoonosis on bird and animal populations. Reverse zoonosis is the term used to describe humans passing pathogens on to animals.

The study found human-linked pathogens in bird poop, revealing for the first time, that even animals on this isolated, ice-bound landmass can pick up a bug from tourists or visiting scientists.

“This newly identified infection route could have devastating consequences for Antarctic bird colonies, including population collapse and even extinction.”

Regardless, if Antarctica is on your bucket list, a visit in the summer of 2021/22 will depend on how relaxed your country is about letting you leave. Still, we can all dream.

Further reading:

Clean Jobs Plan Tackles Climate Change

climate-clean-jobs — Image by enriquelopezgarre, Pixabay

Three big topics of 2021 – Covid-19, Climate Change and Job Creation, are inextricably linked to the future of the planet.

The official climate report is in for 2020, with global temperatures tying with 2016 as the hottest ever recorded.

Although Australians sweltered through an early November heatwave, the summer so far has not been too hard to endure.(except SA,Victoria and NSW are likely to see temperatures exceeding 40C this weekend. Ed

The data cited by the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service seemed at odds with images of Madrid enduring its worst snowfall in 50 years. The mercury in Madrid plunged to -10, compared with the January average of 3 degrees.

The New York Times said the heavy snowstorm presented complications for the Spanish government, still struggling with a rising Coronavirus caseload, more than 499,000 in Madrid alone. Spain’s Covid-19 death toll, more than 51,000, is one of the highest in Europe. The government warned residents to stay home, well aware of the temptation for people to venture outdoors.

That’s the nature of climate change, however; extremes in summer and winter and shifting weather patterns in the autumn and spring.

Spain is also struggling with the impact of Covid-19 on its workforce. More than one million jobs were lost during the worst months of the pandemic. Despite short-time work schemes and a third quarter rebound, Spain’s unemployment rate is still around 13%.

Youth unemployment (under 25’s) is 40%.

While Australia’s latest unemployment rate of 6.6% (December) looks good by comparison, the short-term nature of Spain’s jobs policy sounds depressingly familiar.

The International Monetary Fund estimated that in April and May up to a fifth of Spain’s workers were on short-term contracts. Possibly in an attempt to sway the government towards ‘green’ job creation, the IMF revealed that Spain’s housing sector is one of the most energy inefficient in the EU. It accounts for about 16% of Spain’s Emissions Trading System emissions.

“Residential housing would benefit from labor-intensive, climate-compatible public investment,” an IMF report said.

As the IMF observes, a focus on green buildings can provide a demand boost to support recovery, while closing gaps in green infrastructure and human capital.

“This will accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy and strengthen the economy,” the IMF’s report on Spain said.

It’s no different Down Under, with the built environment said to account for 25% of Australia’s CO2 emissions. Attempts to regulate the building industry to make buildings more energy efficient have been inadequate.

The Climate Council listed energy efficient buildings and urban green spaces as part of its ‘Clean Jobs’ policy paper.

The Climate Council commissioned AlphaBeta, a consultancy specialising in advanced data analysis, resulting in a plan to create 76,000 ‘clean’ jobs.

The 68-page document (with four pages of references), sets out 12 opportunities to put Australians back to work, restart the economy and tackle climate change. The jobs include 15,000 installing utility-scale renewable energy (solar and wind farms, transmission infrastructure and utility-scale batteries). The plan also includes 12,000 jobs in targeted ecosystem restoration, and 12,000 in public and active transport constructions. Another 37,000 jobs are projected to be created in other projects across Australia, including in organic waste, energy efficiency in buildings, urban green spaces and community-scale storage.

This alternative solution to the 840,000 jobs lost to Covid-19 requires less than 0.5% of GDP. Every dollar of public spending is estimated to attract $1.10 in private investment.

The Climate Council’s paper was widely reported in alternative energy circles, but few mainstream media outlets covered the story. This is despite the Climate Council claims it would help people and industries that have been hit hardest by the COVID-19 crisis, especially in regional Australia.

“One in three job openings would require minimal training, meaning that displaced workers, from hospitality workers in Victoria to tourism operators in Cairns, could be rapidly employed.”

The Climate Council ran Clean Jobs briefing sessions with State government representatives after its launch in July. A spokeswoman told FOMM that meaningful actions were taken and worked into State budget announcements.

“We are in the midst of strategising for how we will revitalise the report for 2021, ensuring maximum impact and continuing on its success.”

The latest Australian employment data released yesterday shows an improvement in both the unemployment rate (down -0.2%) and the labour participation rate. Nevertheless, youth unemployment is still up 2.3% for the calendar year, at 13.9%.

Youth unemployment is as high as 25% in some parts of regional Australia. While the under-25’s are being propped up by the Jobseeker scheme, which effectively doubled the NewStart payment, this funding will end on March 21.

An ACTU submission to the Jobs for the future in Regional Australia Inquiry canvassed Australia’s rate of underemployment (8.5% from 9.4% in November). This far outstrips the OECD average, with ANZ describing the underemployment crisis as “widespread” throughout the country.

“Precarious work is increasingly becoming the norm, which makes it more difficult for workers to argue for fair pay and conditions.”

Underemployed workers are more likely to exhibit lower job satisfaction, higher job turnover, poorer mental and physical health and persistently lower income.

The Climate Council’s Clean Jobs paper reminds us that the Australian economy is vulnerable to escalating climate risks.

Property prices are liable to fall up to $571 billion and agricultural and labour productivity by $19 billion in the next decade. Flow-on effects will be felt across the country, and will worsen unless emissions are lowered.

These claims are corroborated by the Reserve Bank of Australia, which has stated that more severe, persistent climate-related shocks could threaten the stability of the Australian economy. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has labelled climate change a “systemic risk” and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority has said the financial risks of climate change are “foreseeable, material and actionable now”.

While Australia’s unemployment rate is trending down after hitting 7.5% in July, we should remember that a third of the labour force works less than 40 hours a week. The latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows the share of part-time employment rose to 32.1% for the year to December (4.149 million).

The Federal Government is pinning its hopes on improving the lot of young Australians through its JobMaker subsidy.

The JobMaker Hiring Credit will be available to employers for each new job they create over the next 12 months for eligible young people aged 16 to 35. The scheme started on October 7, 2020, with eligible employers able to claim $200 a week for each additional eligible employee they hire (aged 16 to 29) and $100 a week for employees aged 30 to 35.

Much noise has been made by and on behalf of the over-35 cohort, arguing discrimination, predicting the JobMaker scheme will further marginalise the long-term unemployed.

Ah well, at least young people who are hired on this basis will be able to afford a portable air conditioner. And here’s hoping everyone, including those hired under JobMaker, will be able to take paid sick leave if they are ill or are quarantining owing to Covid-19 testing

Why borders are important

border-controls — Image courtesy of Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (WA)

Breaking events in Washington tempted me to change course, but when wise people like Barack Obama and Jacinda Ardern have already had their say, I’m staying with today’s topic.

Before Covid-19, restrictions at Australian border crossings were limited to bio-security controls, primarily on carrying fresh fruit and vegetables and plant materials from one State to another.

Travellers, particularly those who take their households with them (camper trailers, caravans and RVs), should download this detailed booklet.

You’d be as surprised as I was to learn of the many items banned in particular states. The objective is to prevent the spread of pests like fruit fly and plant diseases such as banana bunchy top virus, potato cyst nematode or grape phyloxera.

Pests, diseases and weeds can be spread from one part of Australia to another through the movement of many items, including plant or plant products, fruit and vegetables, animals or animal products, soil and agricultural machinery.

It is probably dangerous to generalise about what’s OK and what’s not, but transporting honey, bananas, live plants and soil between States is a bit of a no-no. If in doubt, ask. And, if you’ve been working on a farm, make sure your boots are free of imported soil.

I do recall tossing some fresh fruit into a quarantine bin before entering Western Australia, which has some of the strictest bio-security measures in the country. Throwing away perfectly good fruit seemed a small price to pay when you understand the risks.

The reason for the zealotry over honey is probably because WA is the only Australian state relatively free of bee diseases, including European foul brood disease (a bee killer). So, that jar of raw honey you bought at a market in country Victoria should be binned at the border, in case there are spores lurking in the untreated honey.

My point is that fair-minded Australians would probably do the right thing to help States safeguard agricultural industries against imported diseases.

So why then are people trying to subvert the border controls imposed to stop the spread of Coronavirus?

Before Christmas, Queensland police turned away more than 100 people who attempted to travel into the State from NSW virus hot spots. Police had ramped up border security on the State’s road crossings and increased compliance checks on travellers undergoing home quarantine.

Chief Superintendent Mark Wheeler told the ABC that 57 vehicles containing 115 people had so far been turned around at the Queensland-New South Wales border since the restrictions were reimposed.

“People who are trying to game the system — we will catch you,” he said.

This week Queensland police commissioner Katarina Carroll branded a tweet by conservative lobbyist Lyle Sheldon as a waste of police resources.

Mr Sheldon posted a tweet, which he later said was meant as a joke, about his “sneaky run across the border and back” and “avoided the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] virus police” in the process.

Police visited Mr Sheldon’s home to question him about the tweet (about his beach run from Coolangatta to Point Danger and back), and left soon after.

The Brisbane Times quoted Commissioner Carroll, who said the tweet was “disappointing” because it involved valuable resources to investigate and clear Mr Shelton.

“He can cross the border because I understand he has a G-Pass. So it was just a funny tweet that, in the end, all it did was take away resources that needed to be in other places.”

Bees in a bottle aside, there have been serious attempts throughout 2020 by people determined to defy Queensland’s border rules. The border has been closed since mid-March, (albeit with a brief re-opening), allowing access only to people with border exemption passes.

Between March and the end of September, Queensland police issued fines totalling $3.5 million to 2,296 people. Fines averaging $1,500 were imposed for breaching a range of Covid-security health directions.

Gold Coast lawyer Bill Potts told 9News it was not surprising that so few people had paid their fines.

“The reality is if you’re prepared to breach the laws there for public safety and the health of the community, you’re exactly the person who won’t pay a fine.“

Commissioner Carroll said “quite a high percentage” of people are also failing to pay their bills for hotel quarantine.

Under Queensland’s COVID regulations, people generate a SPER (State Penalties Enforcement Registry) debt if they do not pay their fines. These will be added to the latest tally, which is significant. According to Queensland Treasury, 1.32 million people owing $376 million are paying off their fines through a repayment arrangement or unpaid community service.

There is also the case of the so-called ‘Logan Trio’, three women who allegedly lied on their Covid paperwork to avoid quarantine after entering Queensland from a Melbourne hotspot. The three have been charged with fraud, with their case set to be heard on January 20.

Meanwhile, many citizens will have found themselves stranded on the wrong side of the border. As it stands, Victorians who have been visiting Queensland for Christmas are able to return to Victoria by a direct flight between Queensland and Melbourne. I should add that if they were still in Melbourne on December 21 they have to be Covid-tested and wait for a negative result before flying home.

For those who came by road, the options are limited, as they cannot drive via New South Wales without applying for a border exemption and risking an expensive hotel quarantine stay on arrival. The alternative is a sprawling detour by road via Camooweal, the Northern Territory and South Australia (to Adelaide) then to Melbourne. The distance is about 5,100kms, compared with 1,766 direct Brisbane to Melbourne by road. Or the 4WD short-cut via Birdsville to Adelaide. Bear in mind there is paperwork involved at all border crossings and rules can change overnight.

These are pesky (and expensive) inconveniences, but where we would you rather be? Our daily cases are considerably less than 1% of those reported in England, the US, Brazil, India, Mexico and dozens of other countries.

Many of us have friends or relatives in England where the new strain of Coronavirus is spiralling out of control. The severe lockdown is at odds with border controls during the first six months of the pandemic, when Brits routinely took holidays to the continent. Non-essential travel between England and Europe has been banned since late October,

Meanwhile, Greater Brisbane is going into a three day lockdown from 6pm tonight to curb the spread of the mutant UK strain. While there was only one new locally acquired case in the past 24 hours (Queensland), New South Wales has 196 active cases including 6 acquired overseas. Victoria has 38 cases (which may explain why they are keeping the border closed to NSW).

Obviously this is a fast-moving story, but we should try to keep up with the news, even when we think we are ‘safe’; for example, this week’s discovery of Coronavirus traces in sewage at locations including Warwick and Stanthorpe.

I read about that in Australia’s first new independent regional daily since 1955, the Warwick-based Daily Journal. The first edition on Monday contained a Covid update, including a checklist of conditions prior to entering the State.

All that aside, if you are coming into Queensland from elsewhere, the entire state is a biosecurity zone for bananas, grape plants, mangoes and sugarcane.

But you knew that, eh?

Polio – an ever-present risk

polio-risk-covid — An iron lung, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London: a patient inside a Drinker respirator, attended to by a nurse and a doctor. Photograph, ca. 1930. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Polio is my counter-cyclical topic to kick of a new year that everyone hopes will see the Covid-19 global pandemic kicked in the arse. That’s Australian lingo for vanquished, eradicated, snuffed out. Despite hopes that the Covid-19 respiratory virus will be globally defeated through a programme of vaccinations, it is unlikely to cover everyone who needs it, this year or even next. So let’s be informed by history.

My generation will recall the arrival of the polio immunisation team at their local primary school in the 1950s. ‘The Jab’ was administered to all children as part of a mandatory scheme to eradicate poliomyelitis (polio) from New Zealand (where I grew up). NZ, like Australia, had virus outbreaks in the 1930s, 40s and 50s.

Polio is a viral disease that affects the spinal cord and nervous system, primarily in children and adolescents. Globally, the disease has been 99% eradicated, after an immunisation programme started in 1955. Yet, as health authorities warn, even though the disease has not been seen in the US since 1988, it would take just one live case to be imported to re-start the viral cycle.

I warmed to this as a FOMM topic after reading a few chapters of Alan Alda’s charming biography ‘Never have your dog stuffed’. Alda, who contracted polio as a child in the 1940s recalled, “The country was in the throes of an epidemic. People were afraid to go to public swimming pools or theatres for fear of contagion.”

His parents utilised a controversial treatment advocated by Australian nurse, Sister Elizabeth Kenny. The treatment involved application of heat packs and manual stretching of limbs. Though controversial at the time, the Kenny methods were absorbed into what we now know as rehabilitation medicine.

Despite Alda’s graphic description of the painful application of heat packs, he credits the Kenny treatment with not developing paralysis or the characteristic withered leg common in polio victims.

Even though his doctor had declared him no longer contagious, young Alda had few visitors. He related how one child came to visit for a short while, sitting across the room on a wooden chair.

“Over the next couple of weeks, I thought about this, how kind he was to visit me. I also noticed he didn’t come back.”

Serious polio cases were often subjected to lengthy periods in an ‘iron lung’. An iron lung was a bed inside a metal box with a cushioned opening where the patient’s head protruded. The machine helped patients breathe mechanically until such time as the virus subsided and they could breathe on their own.

Survivors who were left with a withered leg were fitted with a caliper to help them walk. Serious cases ended up in a wheelchair.

It is estimated that about 30% of those affected by paralytic polio could be vulnerable to Post-Polio Syndrome in later life. Occurring about 30 years after the initial infection, PPS causes progressively worsening muscle weakness in limbs affected by the disease.

To demonstrate that polio (like Covid-19) can affect anyone, many famous people were affected by the disease:

Actor and humorist Michael Flanders (of the duo Flanders and Swan) spent much of his life in a wheelchair after contracting polio in 1942. As you can tell by this splendid parody of Mozart’s horn concerto, Flanders did not let polio dominate his life, short as it was (he died in 1975 aged 53). Given the dire nature of this topic, I recommend this performance of “Ill Wind” as light relief.

My favourite songwriter, Joni Mitchell, developed polio and spent much of her childhood at home, where she discovered a talent for art and music. Joni developed her distinctive range of open tunings on guitar and dulcimer to compensate for an arm weakened by the disease. Polio might also explain her friendship with another Canadian songwriter, Neil Young, also a victim.

Australian songwriter Joy Mckean has worn a caliper since developing polio in childhood. In the documentary Slim and I, she tells the story of how she came to write Lights on the Hill, one of her husband Slim Dusty’s enduring songs. As Joy tells it, in the days when she and Slim criss-crossed the continent, the dip switch of most cars was located on the floor, to the left of the brake pedal. As her left leg was paralyzed, Joy had developed a method of moving her right leg across to dip the lights and back to the accelerator. It puts lines like these sharply into context:

These rough old hands are a-glued to the wheel
My eyes full of sand from the way they feel
And the lights comin’ over the hill are a-blindin’ me

Many other well-known Australians were struck down with polio as children, including the late media tycoon Kerry Packer, radio presenter John Laws and former Deputy PM Kim Beazley.

Packer was at boarding school in 1945, aged six, when, as he recalls, “one morning I got out of bed and just fell flat on my face.

“I had polio and rheumatic fever and was sent straight down to Sydney. They put me in hospital there for about nine months in an iron lung.”

Although there has not been a locally acquired case in Australia since 1972, the country has a polio response plan in place. The ever-present risk of the disease being imported could trigger the plan. Although wild poliovirus-associated paralytic poliomyelitis has not been reported in Australia since 1977, an imported case was reported in a man who had traveled from Pakistan to Australia in 2007.

British new wave rocker Ian Drury was a polio survivor. The disease left him with a withered leg and arm and other disabilities. That did not stop him forming a band (The Blockheads) and penning pithy songs like Sex’n Drugs’n Rock’n Roll, Hit me with Your Rhythm Stick and Reasons to be Cheerful.

Drury, a disabled man with a poor opinion of the International Year of Disabled Persons, wrote Spasticus Autisticus in 1981. The lyrics are directed at the campaign, which he saw as patronising and counter-productive.

“So place your hard-earned peanuts in my tin
    And thank the Creator you’re not in the state I’m in
    So long have I been languished on the shelf
    I must give all proceedings to myself.”

This could be loosely adapted to a post-Covid scenario; someone lamenting how Covid has left them with weird after effects, or how the world’s way of dealing with the pandemic has dealt them a bitter economic blow.

It’s not hard to imagine Australian health authorities developing a long-term Covid response plan, as they did with polio.

As we know, all it takes is one case, imported from somewhere else, and the contagion starts all over again.

Happy New Year, then!

Lyric extracts from www.lyrics.com

Note from the Editor- don’t blame me – I said: “Why don’t you write something fluffy for the start of the year?”

I won’t be home for Christmas

Christmas-expats-covid19 — Image: ThePixelman, www.pixabay.com.au

Every year at this time, Australians who live and work overseas are making plans to visit their families for Christmas. When you live and work in places like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Auckland, Hong Kong or Singapore, three weeks at the beach in Oz is the perfect escape from chilly winters.

But not this year, dear reader, as the second, or is it third wave of Covid 19 has sent cities in Europe and the UK in particular into lock-down.

The above destinations are where Aussie ex-pats are most likely to live and work, according to employment agency Apply Direct. Using figures from the Department of Home Affairs, Apply Direct singled out the top destinations where many of our ex-pats live. Figures are hard to pin down, but it is estimated that of the eight million Aussies who travel abroad looking for adventure, one million or so will decide to stay and work.

The United Kingdom hosts by far the largest ex-pat population (160,000). Many young Australians can claim parents or grandparents who were born in the UK, which gives them an automatic right to live and work there.

Our extended family is no exception, with family members living in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Canada, the US and elsewhere.

Many young Australians head for the UK when making their first trip abroad. It is easy enough to base yourself in London, find some kind of job (ex-pats often take the casual jobs the Brits won’t do), and make forays to Europe whenever possible.

As often happens when you are in your 20s and single, matches are made and romance sometimes blooms.

Morocco-based ex-pat Suzanna Clarke uses technology to keep in touch with her siblings.

“My sister is in Adelaide, my brother in Oxford and me in Morocco. (Our parents died a few years ago.) We also have a catch up video call via Skype on Sundays, although sometimes we use the video function on WhatsApp. I love the ease of communication these days. I have kept letters between my great-grandmother and my grandmother, who were living in Brazil and England respectively from the 1930s to 1950s. The letters have two to three month gaps, as they were transported by ship. Even when I was travelling in India and Europe in my 20s, the lag was at least a couple of weeks. We are so fortunate these days!”

Meanwhile, in the worst-hit country by far (the USA), some of the 90,000 Aussie ex-pats, and like-minded Americans, will be self-isolating over Christmas. Most Australians congregate in just three cities – Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York. Fair to say that many of them are people with a talent in some aspect of music production or movie-making. We know a few musicians who have had periodic flirtations with the country music capital, Nashville. We also know one or two who came to visit and stayed.

Musician George Jackson, who lives outside of Nashville with his wife Rachel, says he is keeping a low profile at Yuletide.

“We just cancelled all Christmas plans with any of Rachel’s family and are now planning to basically have it at home by ourselves. Obviously the virus is surging pretty badly here in the US and we decided it was best for everyone if we didn’t risk any gatherings for Christmas this year, particularly to protect the health of Rachel’s parents.

“I’ve been keeping in touch with friends and family back in Australia. I saw my parents in January last year, so it’s coming up a year since seeing them and I know they are missing being able to be with me and my brother, who’s living in France. So that’s tough, but we’re sticking it out and waiting for that vaccine to get approved and distributed and looking forward to perhaps a mid-summer Christmas in July next year with family.”

.It is beginning to sound as if the vaccine will be a prerequisite for people wishing to fly from one country to another. Australia’s major airline Qantas flagged this requirement in an announcement that made headlines around the world.

Forbes magazine reported that Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said his airline would eventually only allow vaccinated travellers to board its flights. The move would essentially allow travellers to move around the globe unhindered by quarantines.

The ready adoption of video streaming technologies has helped families with relatives living abroad (or even on opposite sides of the continent), to connect or re-connect.

A Sydney-based Kiwi friend has planned a holiday in Melbourne, knowing that a visit home would involve a 14-day quarantine stay. She usually travels to New Zealand at Christmas to spend time with family. The only way to do that now is to go into quarantine for two weeks, at a cost of $2,000 on top of the airfare. Like so many others, she is relying on digital connections. Fortunately her family has gravitated to a weekly chat on WhatsApp.

Irish Joe Lynch, a performance poet who lives in Maleny, spoke of the unexpected constraints on travel to visit family members.

“Taking my freedom completely for granted, I returned to Ireland many times over the past 40–odd years, visiting family and friends. I still have five ageing siblings overseas whom I would dearly love to visit, but of course that is not available to me now ever since the outbreak of Covid19. What is most distressing is the knowledge that most of my family are currently undergoing Stage 4 and Stage 5 lock-down restrictions, and are terribly frustrated and lonely.”

You may not know that the UK, one of the worst affected by Covid 19, appointed its first Minister for Loneliness in 2016.

Loneliness is a big deal in Britain, where 45% of people polled in 2016-2017 admitted to feeling lonely “occasionally, often or always”, One in 20 adults felt lonely often or always, which equates to 1.4 million people, a 49% increase on the same survey in 2006-2007.

A mental health survey during the UK’s lock-down in April found that one in four (24%) had feelings of loneliness in the “previous two weeks”. This was more than double the response before lock-down. One in three females (34%) and one in five males (20%) reported suffering from loneliness while working from home during the COVID-19 social restrictions period.

On Sunday, I had my first-ever video chat with my sister, who does not have a computer or mobile phone. We usually talk on her landline (equipped for the hearing impaired). On Sunday, we chatted via a relative who was visiting and who rang me on Messenger. It was good to be face to face again and realise (with some shock) how we have both aged since I was there in 2017. I made a note on the calendar to ring my other sister (who does have a mobile phone) at Christmas, although she has told me she prefers ‘ear-to-ear’.

But as Suzanne said, in the 1950s people wrote letters to loved ones overseas, patiently waiting months for a response. Since we have the technology to simulate face to face communications, we really ought to use it, eh.