Mon 23 Mar 2020: COVID Lockdown
The COVID-19 pandemic in Australia was part of the worldwide pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19. This disease caused severe acute respiratory failure in most cases and caused a lot of deaths.
We were given "stay at home" orders where you could only go out for essential reasons (such as essential work - nurses, doctors etc and grocery shopping. Only one person in the household could go out to buy groceries.
Mask wearing became mandatory.
Social distancing rules were also applied and there were quarantine periods for those exposed to the virus and other health measures.
Restrictions on domestic and international travel were applied.
Suspension and closure of non-essential businesses and activites were also applied.
So I started working from home. Medical appointments were done over the phone with the introduction of Telehealth.
So for the rest of March, April and some of May, Australia was in lockdown.
Working from home meant we needed laptops and VPN. TAFE responded and for the LTS team, we could work from home. Others were forced to take leave.
Teams meetings and calls became the norm.
