OPINION: In search of optimism after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic

To anyone out there who feels the trials and tribulations of the COVID-19 pandemic might never end, I’d like to offer you hope by taking you back to the start. When the Advertiser first started reporting on COVID-19 in early 2020, some readers — and colleagues, truth be told — criticised those stories as fearmongering. Alas, when the virus hit home in late March 2020, that view vanished quicker than a half-price pack of dunny roll during lockdown. It has been a little more than two years since Albany had its first confirmed case of the virus — a woman who was a passenger on the ill-fated Ruby Princess cruise ship. In those sketchy early days of the pandemic, COVID felt like a storm cloud spreading over WA, threatening to subject us to the same cruel punishment it was dishing out in Europe. Streets were empty, events were cancelled, sport was called off and the City of Albany was putting out videos of the mayor that resembled wartime addresses from a council bunker. Health was our No. 1 priority, but the potential toll on jobs and businesses was also unsettling. It was an eerie, anxious time for our city as we bunkered down and focused on flattening the curve, cut off from other parts of WA by regional borders. For those few months, when almost everyone agreed we needed to take COVID seriously, the Advertiser’s social media community was relatively harmonious. But as the restrictions set in and vaccines hit the streets, things got funky. Anti-vaxxers, realising this was their grand final, swamped our Facebook page. They still haven’t let up. Regardless of the relentless social media presence of the anti-vaxxers, we are in a significantly different position to when COVID reached Albany a little over two years ago — even if it doesn’t always feel like it. Most of us are triple-vaccinated and our incredible local businesses are battle-hardened after two years of adapting to various restrictions and requirements. Having pulled together to navigate this pandemic, our focus is rightly starting to switch from the threats around us to the path ahead. The regional borders are long gone and WA is opening up to the world. Life in WA is edging its way back towards normality — touch wood — and we are all emerging with unique experiences of the pandemic. Those of us in the Advertiser newsroom will always remember those few months when our Facebook page was uncharacteristically peaceful — how everyone pulled together when things seemed particularly serious. And in a time when some people have lost their jobs because of the pandemic, the whole ordeal has reinforced how much of a privilege it is for us to keep you, our readers, informed.