I've had one lock-down for about 6 weeks, starting on 30th March 2020. That's been the extent of it for me.
Lockdown meant the family stayed home with the children doing school remotely. We were allowed out for exercise (family group only) within a few km radius, supermarket shopping, medical and looking after aged family. I could have gone to an office, but was able to work remotely.
Other areas have been through more due to localised outbreaks. Parts of Northern Sydney did several weeks around Christmas due to an outbreak. Victoria's second wave was the most intense lock-down. That went for about 3 months. It was tough on the Victorians I know, but as a comparison at the beginning of the lock-down the UK and Victoria were in a similar situation. By the end of the lock-down Victoria was on zero cases whilst the UK was at risk of the NHS being overwhelmed.
We've now settled into a pattern of 3-day lock-downs at the first sign of any outbreak, these being lifted if there is no further transmission detected during the lock-down. So far there have been about 4-5 of these in different state capitals but all have been lifted at the end of the 3 days.
Vaccinewise, Australia's dropped the ball a bit. The government under spent on mRNA vaccines and didn't invest in local mRNA manufacturing. We're making the AZ vaccine locally, but there turns out to be a low risk of blood clots. Given the low COVID numbers it's borderline whether the risk of blood clots is outweighed by the risk of COVID for under 50s. The medical recommendation is for mRNA over AZ, but decent supplies won't arrive until the end of the year. I mention this as low COVID numbers makes decisions about vaccines more complicated.
Life here is "normal" in that there aren't many restrictions beyond overseas travel, but a significant number of people are choosing not to go back to their old ways, partly due to COVID risk and partly because they have figured out that some of their previous activities weren't actually that important and that life is good without them.
Sydney/NSW is an interesting case, as its response has very much relied on contact tracing, to the extent that it is probably a world leader in this area.
When a case is detected, the NSW government's contract tracers conduct confidential phone interviews to determine all contacts, both forward and backward. A forward contact is someone to whom you may have given the virus. A backward contact is someone from whom you may have received the virus. The "backward" contact is the more critical one, as it can lead to previously unknown community cases. The contact tracers are aiming to trace the new case back to an already known case. If they find any intermediate transmission or close contacts, they recursively do the forward/backward thing on the intermediaries and close contacts until they reach limits imposed by COVID's known incubation and infection times. The aim is to locate every person who has any chance of having COVID, given the known properties of COVID.
If the contact tracers successfully traverse the tree to all possible cases then lockdown is avoided. Close contacts are required to isolate at home for 14 days (with a support payment), whilst casual contacts are asked to get tested and monitor for symptoms. If the contact tracers are unable to traverse the tree or are overwhelmed by the numbers then a lockdown occurs. NSW has put significant resources into contact tracing as it recognises that the cost of a lockdown will always be greater than the spend on contact tracing.
Beyond phone interviews, contact tracing is assisted by a requirement for all public venues to keep a 14 day digital log of names, phone numbers and time of attendance of people who have visited. Patrons provide details on an honour basis, but most people do this honestly as they realise that it is their own interest to be contacted if they have been exposed to COVID. There's also a certain amount of pride that the country has weathered the storm (so far) and people don't want to be the one that stuffs it up.
I've had one lock-down for about 6 weeks, starting on 30th March 2020. That's been the extent of it for me.
Lockdown meant the family stayed home with the children doing school remotely. We were allowed out for exercise (family group only) within a few km radius, supermarket shopping, medical and looking after aged family. I could have gone to an office, but was able to work remotely.
Other areas have been through more due to localised outbreaks. Parts of Northern Sydney did several weeks around Christmas due to an outbreak. Victoria's second wave was the most intense lock-down. That went for about 3 months. It was tough on the Victorians I know, but as a comparison at the beginning of the lock-down the UK and Victoria were in a similar situation. By the end of the lock-down Victoria was on zero cases whilst the UK was at risk of the NHS being overwhelmed.
We've now settled into a pattern of 3-day lock-downs at the first sign of any outbreak, these being lifted if there is no further transmission detected during the lock-down. So far there have been about 4-5 of these in different state capitals but all have been lifted at the end of the 3 days.
Vaccinewise, Australia's dropped the ball a bit. The government under spent on mRNA vaccines and didn't invest in local mRNA manufacturing. We're making the AZ vaccine locally, but there turns out to be a low risk of blood clots. Given the low COVID numbers it's borderline whether the risk of blood clots is outweighed by the risk of COVID for under 50s. The medical recommendation is for mRNA over AZ, but decent supplies won't arrive until the end of the year. I mention this as low COVID numbers makes decisions about vaccines more complicated.
Life here is "normal" in that there aren't many restrictions beyond overseas travel, but a significant number of people are choosing not to go back to their old ways, partly due to COVID risk and partly because they have figured out that some of their previous activities weren't actually that important and that life is good without them.