The first sign of a wave is a retreating ocean. The shoreline is dragged back dramatically, exposing some of the underwater areas.
The first two years of the epidemic are similar to the ocean. We have a unique opportunity to see the world from a different perspective because of our separate circumstances.
The invisible systems that organize our society were exposed by the Pandemic. The systems of capitalism and globalisation, the systems of class, systemic racism and patriarchy, and the social systems of the nuclear family and individuals are all included in these systems.
Our internal seafloor has been exposed in the two years of the Pandemic years.
We have to see what we are made of, with previously unimaginable circumstances creating a chance to really test ourselves, see where we are weak and where we are strong.
We can expect more destruction to come. This exposure could show us how to rebuild stronger.
What did we see when the virus exposed us? What will we do with the clarity?
George Megalogenis wrote that Covid was awicked genius because he was looking for holes and gaps in the economic model. The areas that the government had privatised were identified by Megalogenis as weak points in Australia's response to the Pandemic.
He said that Covid would start killing if he was left a gap in the safety net.
The weak points were Australian privatisation. The Commonwealth contracts everything out in aged care, and the damage was done when the virus got out of the hotel, with contract workers including security guards and cleaners who were under trained, underpaid and unaccountable.
Australia's government systems turned out to be robust enough until Omicron came along in the final weeks of 2021. Australia had a relatively low death and infections rate due to border closings and a high level of compliance with lockdowns. The Jobkeeper and Jobseeker schemes saved the economy.
The federal government has changed its approach in response to the rapid emergence of the Omicron variant, stressing the personal responsibility of citizens and dramatically changing requirements for testing and isolation.
If Australia had experienced the same number of cases and deaths as Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom, there would have been between 680,000 and 2 million cases.
The pain was not evenly distributed.
While wealthier, white-collar workers were able to work from home, the majority of exposure to the virus was found in more working-class jobs such as manufacturing, food delivery, and gig economy.
The majority of healthcare staff quitting are women. The economic and psychological impact of the virus will be compounded by the lifetime economic disadvantage of women.
According to a report by Australian Unions, government responses have not adequately addressed the way the Covid-19 crisis is reproducing and worsening structural inequality faced by women. Government policies have made it worse.
There is a looming "shadow pandemic" of worsening mental health outcomes. The suicide rates were down but the self harm rates were up. This does not bode well for the mental health system.
We have not fixed the systems that underpin inequality despite the mess at the crossroads of capitalism, gender, class, intergenerational disadvantage, race and work.
A character test.
The need for a village was revealed by the nuclear family's limitations. Friends, aunts, neighbours, teachers, grandparents, and uncles are important for healthy families. The need for communities and personal support systems to stay connected to families and acknowledgment in a person's workplace of the whole load an employee might be carrying in their life were some of the things that were exposed.
Many families felt overwhelmed and marooned without access to the village because work bled deeply into domestic life and domestic spaces, much more work fell to women, and parents found it impossible to work and supervise school at the same time.
There is a glimpse at our own psyches. Were we strong? Is it calm? Kind? Is it fear and fretful?
Circumstances don't make the man, they only reveal him to himself, according to the great philosopher.
It was here.
The past two years have shown us what we are made of, and provided us with the sort of character test that only comes around with world wars and depressions.
In Australia, the public rage has not been as marked as in America, although it has been seen in anti-lockdown protests and in our shops.
Australia has a low level of mortality and a high level of compliance with lockdown rules. There was a sense of caring for the stranger and not wanting to endanger people in your community. This sense of community boded well for a healthy society.
What will we do with our newfound clarity? Seeing the truth of one's own life will likely prompt some to reorganize.
There is a certain amount of things we can do to make our lives better. Maybe you've already started making things that will be broken.
It's possible that a friendship that was revealed to be too one-sided or unfulfilling may have led to the end of a relationship. What was always going to happen was accelerated by the Pandemic. Maybe it gave you a hint of the carpe diem kind, or maybe the unique pressures of lockdowns broke the back of things that would otherwise have drift along for decades to come, but never really stress-tested.
Changing the elements that make up our lives, our friends, our partner, our job, family, our health and fitness, the place where we live, seems big. It is making our lives better. It's not grand to swap Larry for Barry and make sales for making soap while enormous within the unit of one life.
Systemic shifts that lead to a reorganisation of society that can better absorb large shocks are what is needed. It is ground-up stuff.
For me, it will always be linked with something that started earlier, even though the Pandemic began in Australia in March 2020. The skies were full of ash in November. We wore masks that summer.
The past two years have given us a glimpse of the radical planetary reorganisation that will need to occur when the climate crisis really bares its teeth.
We will want to forget this chapter of the Pandemic once it is over. We can paste over the issues we have with our set-ups with the help of bars and restaurants, gyms, and hairdressers. We think a move to the country is enough for our personal revolution. It is.
We have seen the bottom of the ocean in many different ways. It is a dark gift to have clarity. The work is not done.
