This one hurts a bit, tbh.Copping a lot of flack on Twitter, but Twitter is very negative in general…so is the media. Makes it really hard to tell from Melbourne.
I have family in WA and I know they’re not happy but that’s probably because they travel a lot for work and they haven’t been able to see anyone from interstate for a couple of years.
My father passed away a couple of weeks ago, and my brother, who lives in country South Australia, hadn't seen him in person for about three years. There were numerous planned visits that have been cancelled, including one that was only days away when borders were closed in July.
He's not able to come to the funeral this week, and plans for him to come after February 5, and then take Mum to SA for a bit have also been put on hold for a while.
That said, the plan for the state government has always been to keep COVID out for as long as possible. And they have done that far better than anyone has expected. So if that's your main goal, and Feb 5 is an arbitrary date anyway, they may as well shift it back. Still hurts, though.
It will be interesting to see what happens if cases start to blow out - whether there majority of people say "it could be so much worse if we opened up" or if it is "well, it's here now, may as well just open up." The media seem to be pushing the re-opening, which is significant, because they were very supportive of McGowan in the past.