Hard to hear COVID cost on kids

THERE is little doubt that the impact of the hotel quarantine debacle in Victoria, involving unqualified private security firms, and the disaster in the state’s aged care facilities, for whatever reason, scared the hell out of the Premier Daniel Andrews and state authorities in the early days of the pandemic.

They dialled up the ‘abundance of caution’ meter to ‘10’ as a result and Melbourne, plus the rest of Victoria to a slightly lesser extent, had one of the most draconian responses to COVID anywhere in the world.

As we look back now, it was crazy stuff.

The discovery of four new cases on August 5, 2021, for example, produced the sixth state-wide shutdown with only five reasons why Victorians could leave their homes – shopping for essential goods and services, work or study if it can’t be done at home, caregiving, exercise for up to two hours-a-day and to get vaccinated.

The 5km travel limit was back in force and face masks continued to be mandatory. You know the drill.

Most of us have put it behind us now but the reality is the Victorian Government’s sledgehammer approach, way in excess of what was happening in other jurisdictions, has cost us big time.

And it was hard to hear last week, at a careers’ breakfast in Leongatha, that students in their senior years of school have been among those to miss out most; on work experience; on training, further education and careers events, on celebration occasions, and other formative and rite-of-passage school and social interaction.

Young kids may also have missed out on some of the important building blocks of education, when, as it turns out, they needn’t have.

The fallout, especially where something might still be done to improve outcomes for our kids, has to be properly researched, acknowledged and funded as a matter of urgency.