Unless and until a safe, effective and long-lasting vaccine is developed, manufactured, distributed and given to a very large proportion of the population, our society and economy are going to remain restricted and diminished.
The future is just about here and it's not all that wonderful. It can be hard to recall now, given the woozy, wild ride we've been on since autumn, but back in March when the first serious wave of restrictions on our lives were imposed, there was still a sense of optimism around.
But here we are at the six-month mark, almost into the final quarter of the year, and the expectation that we could start to meaningfully put the pandemic behind us has been exposed as an understandable bout of wishful thinking.True, there have been some encouraging developments. The national recession apparently has not been as deep as expected. Signs of recovery outside of Victoria are emerging.But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Most of the restored jobs look to be gig economy jobs.
Having put the six-month illusion behind us, we owe it to ourselves to face some challenging truths. Victoria's second wave of infections, which has prompted such drastic and extended limitations on the liberties and activities of Victorians, has stimulated a debate about how we should expect to live and work and study while the virus continues to look for new hosts within the community.Partly because the Andrews government's measures have been so harsh and wide-ranging, they've led to some extreme criticisms from inside and outside the state.
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