Until recently, Darwinians, Palmerstonians, Tourists and other comers thought that we were all part of a geographic area absolutely Coronavirus free. Covid-19 was a distant problem.

Not any more. That is not since a Victorian miner en route top the Granites Mine in the NT had to go via Brisbane and quarantine in a hotel between his RPT and charter (to the mine) flight. Queensland required him to quarantine for nine hours. He was put into a hotel, onto the same floor as repatriated persons from overseas who were recovering from the Delta variant of the virus.

He was infected while in that brief quarantine period while in the quarantine hotel, but unknowingly flew to the Granites. There he was associated with 700 people coming onto shift, 70 of them close contacts. And before his infection became apparent, 900 of his fellow workers left the mine for their R and R periods. Of these 211 flew to Darwin. And among the 211 was an infected miner who lives in Palmerston. He subsequently tested positive as (later) did his wife and daughter.

Darwin is now on Covid lockdown, for two days at first and now five and likely to stretch for longer. No more free and easy. Going out and going into shops is now like playing Russian Roulette. You don’t know if you are going into a place where Covid infectious people have visited. You may have have been in the shop at the same time as them, so you are under the gun. Not a nice feeling. A feeling that fills one with apprehension and fright.

This brings to mind the cases of the worker living in Palmerston who returned from the Granites Mine and then tested positive for the Delta variant of Covid. Why did the family of this man go out and about and roam as wide and free as they did, when they MUST have known there was a fair chance of them being infected, given they knew their husband and father’s situation? Their wandering has put a lot of businesses and scores of people into a situation of health endangerment.

How many people who were in the shops at Gateway during danger times used the Territory QR code or signed into the shops? I would bet any money that less than 5% of those entering shops used the code or signed in before entering the shop.

Covid. It is real and among us.