Covid-19 and Proud to be a Victorian!

I know we’re all worried, and overloaded with bad news about this damn virus but…please read this first hand article by a nurse doing testing at ‘the Towers’: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-11/testing-residents-in-melbournes-public-housing-nurse/12443060

If you only have time for a few snippets, this warmed my heart:

‘I left that day with a full heart thanks to all the “thank yous” and “I love yous” from the residents.
We were invited into many homes, and even offered tea and coffee. I went into a few rooms with elderly, frail people and young children (this was optional and only if we felt safe).
We felt like guests. ‘

Near the end the nurse writes:

‘I have so many wonderful memories of the past few days, all positive. I’d like the broader community to understand that sometimes media portrayals of what goes on are not necessarily true.’

For a very long time now, I’ve noticed that 9 out of 10 news stories are about people who are not infected by the virus ‘doing it tough’. I don’t deny that a lot of people are doing it tough; a massive drop in weekly income will do that to you. But where are the stories about our local heroes? The doctors and nurses and paramedics and yes, police officers who are risking their own lives to keep everyone safe?

And how about the heroes who keep our cities alive? The jobs they do are poorly paid but vital. Can you imagine what would happen if our rubbish were not collected? Or if the power went off and there was no one there to turn it back on again? Or how about food? It doesn’t just appear magically in supermarkets.

We owe every one of these heroes a huge vote of thanks, yet the media ignores them.

And last but not least there are those who have been infected. Why aren’t we hearing their stories? I’ve heard one story about a 23 year old man with Type I diabetes. He came down with Covid-19 and survived, but it wasn’t fun, not be a long, long stretch of the imagination.

If governments want us to co-operate then we need to be told the full story, the good, the sad, and the scary, not just the stories that confirm that life is not ‘fun’ at the moment. If we are to have any kind of life during this pandemic, we all need to rediscover what it means to be socially responsible. We all have to become heroes.

Stay well,
Meeks