"Oh No! "

This is the reaction of everyone if I say I'm not feeling well in this time of pandemic. The thing is I have a chronic illness and when I overdo it - and I do just that much more often than is wise - I become unwell. It's either a flare up of the illness or simply that I need a few days bedrest due to being exhausted. It is hard to explain this, though, in a time when everyone relates everything to the COVID-19 virus. So I have to explain this is not the virus because I don't have a fever, a cough, tight chest, sore throat or muscle aches. It's simply what happens to someone with a chronic illness. However I still get suspicious looks and when the hay fever I've been enduring for the whole of the lockdown causes a cough or sneeze you can imagine the result.

Don't misunderstand me, folk are understandably cautious and so they should be but there's caution and there's panic which, given I live in an Australian state which has handled the pandemic better than most other places in the world, is not necessary. Western Australia has had relatively few reported cases - 551 in total with 9 fatalities - and nearly all have been connected with cruise ships, either passengers, crew or someone who has been in contact with passengers or crew, or who came back from travelling elsewhere. We closed our state borders and stopped travel intrastate into regional areas very early as well as enforcing strict quarantine measures for anyone coming into the state. Along with lockdown of businesses and schools even more rigidly than the national guidelines required, this has been highly successful in preventing the virus spreading.

No-one would deny that the restrictions on movement have been, to say the least, irksome but I cringe every time I see protesters demanding we're given back our 'freedom'. They seem to have no grasp of what freedom is and the lack of personal responsibility they're showing is frankly scary. If you want to live in a functional society you can never have complete freedom of action - we have laws for the good of the community and the protection of all, something these folk do not seem to grasp.

Things are starting to be a bit relaxed now and instead of staying home and only venturing out for food and other necessities and exercise we're now allowed to mix a bit more in the home and in public spaces. That was how it came about on Friday some of my immediate family met up at one of the local public open spaces. We sat out in the sun on the grass - appropriately socially distanced - chatting and drinking a mug of tea, having not actually seen each other since the beginning of March when we celebrated Pisces' birthday. My family is very close and to go that long without seeing one another in person is just about unheard of. We've had phone conversations, of course, but both these couples are more than a little technophobic so there have been no video chats.

As of this week even more is opening up. Restaurants and cafes can have sit down customers as long as they're suitably spaced. While social distancing means this is not an economically viable option for all businesses it means we can slowly begin to resume a relatively normal albeit somewhat different life. Apparently bars are also able to open but since neither Pisces nor I are drinkers we won't be checking them out any time soon.

This is all good and brings some hope but we are being warned that unless a vaccine is developed - and that, despite optimistic hopes, is likely to be at least a year or more away - life will never be quite the same and we'll have to learn to live with the virus in the community. As well there's the likelihood of a second or even a third wave hitting us. Looking back at the influenza pandemic that started at the end of World War One the most disturbing thing to me is that there was a second and a third wave and that the death toll in the second wave was worse than in the first. We still know very little about this virus and its potential to mutate or even if those who have survived it do gain some form of immunity. As well we're now discovering that for many recovery is a very slow process stretching into months in some cases, not the more usual few weeks, and a number of other symptoms different from the initial ones are showing up.

So, yes, it is time that those places where it is controlled should be relaxing the restrictions which have had us in isolation for so long but we cannot afford to be complacent. The health experts agree this virus will be with us for some time to come so we need to be watchful and ready to act quickly if or, as seems likely, when it spikes again.