‘On police and pooches: Kindness during Covid-19 lockdown highlights good in community’

Greetings, fellow Baby Boomers, from the depths of lockdown living in Melbourne, Victoria. Yes, we are experiencing a second wave of coronavirus infections. The daily tally at the moment is quite alarming, here in our little corner of the world.

Some residents have endured worse conditions than where I dwell. Over there, yonder in public housing high rise tower blocks of apartments, there are thousands of citizens who were recently sealed in their flats. We felt for them, we sent them silent messages of empathy, as they were guarded by 500 police, and tested by an array of nurses.

Being the millennial world, there were protesters demonstrating about ‘inhumane’ living arrangements for the already disenfranchised residents. The police copped a lot of flak, but they are doing their job as virus enforcers. They work for the government, and need their salaries to feed their families and fund their living costs.

But I glanced at the news online recently and there appeared a lovely human photo. Victoria’s biggest and best gendarmes, daily walking the pooches also being confined in lockdown living in the towers of flats. The police are human too, who can resist a cute fur friend and its needs for fresh air and ablutions? Beautiful photograph.

This is only a minor niggle, the police are not carrying any pooch poop bags. I do not know if the council inspectors are going to enforce the police picking up dog poo. Let’s face it, no one in Victoria at this time in history is asking the police anything. It is more like the other way around, with police patrols in the suburbs and checkpoints on regional roads to enforce our lockdown living.

This is the structure we have in Melbourne society right now. Health is really wealth and is more important than the things some of us are missing: our social contacts. For many of us, we are seniors, we did not gad about too much any way. We must look on the bright side, Australia still has the best survival rate for patients with Covid-19 in the world.

For lockdown living, we must look forward and be creative with our daily choices. There is a whole world online, if we have computers. There are still some exercise options, like a simple walk or online or DVD classes, if we our mobility permits. If we have space, we can make a little retreat and enjoy a book nook or a craft or television den.

As ordinary civilians, we cannot change the pandemic or the structure of our society. One day, whoever survives and their descendants shall look back on lockdown living and think that it was all part of progress, once upon a time.

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