So, it's a month since the border closure was announced, all the teething problems have been ironed out and everyone has now settled into the new regime.
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No?
Forgive the sarcasm; no one who lives in the Border and North East can be unaware of the shifting sands that have surrounded a NSW government policy made with the best of intentions.
Combating COVID-19 is a 2020 priority, one requiring strong measures that our community, by and large, have accepted and embraced. For months, we stayed home, learned remotely, mastered Zoom meetings and changed the way we worked and played.
Even as coronavirus case numbers in Melbourne started to creep upwards, here in Albury-Wodonga we felt confident the vast majority of people were doing the right thing. Exhibit A - very few positive test results.
And that piece of evidence is no less accurate in August.
IN OTHER NEWS:
Our region still has minimal past cases and no active ones, a position Murrumbidgee Local Health District's Tracey Oakman this week described as "comforting and a relief".
No wonder our residents have found the past month so galling as the NSW and Victorian governments introduced a border closure that primarily hurt people who have contained the virus to date.
But it goes further than that, with the initial closure regulations altered several times almost without warning, each time raising more questions, more concerns, more uncertainty, frustration and stress.
Talk about moving the goalposts; this game's umpire seems to be working from a rule book still being written as they blow the whistle.
This year is, what's the word, unprecedented, and everyone understands real life solutions can lag behind public policy.
However, since July 6 the paperwork and detail has been unacceptably far behind the announcements and late night amendments.
We can't help but agree.
