CLOSING the border has spawned havoc on both sides of the Murray River as our daily life has become disrupted by checkpoints.
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However, while there has been some uniformity with flow-on effects due to NSW and now Victoria putting up shutters, there is another measure that has resulted in much more dire fallout south of the border.
The decision to make mask-wearing compulsory in the Garden State has resulted in traders in places such as Wodonga lose hordes of consumers to Albury where they can shop with a freed-up face.
Initially the requirement for donning masks included outdoor areas, before it eased in recent weeks.
Now though, with community COVID cases re-emerging in Melbourne, the Victorian government has decided all of those in the state need to wear a mask when indoors, excluding their homes.
The move comes as pressure on NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian to make mask-wearing compulsory grows following the spread of the coronavirus across Sydney and Wollongong.
The LIberal leader, unlike her Victorian Labor counterpart Daniel Andrews, has refused to enforce face coverings, despite epidemiologists pushing for the measure.
For us on the border, the upshot is that those on one side of the river are paying a price for what occurs in Melbourne while their cousins on the north bank are as free as Sydneysiders when it comes to masks, despite active cases of COVID growing in the NSW capital.
The most sensible solution for the border would be to make it a bubble when it comes to mask-wearing and not enforce them due to the lack of coronavirus in the region.
That would ensure businesses were on the same footing and residents of Albury-Wodonga, Corowa-Rutherglen, Yarrawonga-Mulwala and Cobram-Barooga were unified.
If such a deal could be agreed to by the Victorian and NSW governments it would be some recognition of the hardship that such anomalies create along a border, but don't hold your breath or your mask waiting for that acknowledgement.
