Covid quarantine lockdown reflections

This has been the longest two weeks in recent memory. In 16 hours I will be released from government forced isolation back into the wild. I entered into this with reluctantly as anyone else would but a part of me was curious about how I would handle this, what my mind would be like and where it would take me. Here are a few stories and thoughts from my 336 hours in room 1222 at the Novotel Hotel, Brisbane city, 9.9.20 – 23.9.20.

I had to travel from Queensland into New South Wales for work which normally is no drama. Due to the current crisis that is known as COVID bloody 19 and the fact that the whole state of NSW is considered a hot spot for infection I was forced into mandatory self isolation. I had been speculating the whole time I was away working what this would be like. Information on the government websites was not given me much to work with and could be interpreted a lot of different ways. I was also trying to find any little loop hole and any little piece of hope that somehow I could get out of it. It was not the case. My work had emailed me all my paperwork that I would need when I landed. In the first paragraph it had a section which said something about my home address is where I will be self isolating. My hope grew 10%. The airport was spooky and eerie with virtually no one there. Everyone was masked up and some over zealous youths even had a face shield on over the top of their masks. They also had red hair and we all know they are prone to catching things and imploding at a moments notice so I didn’t judge to harshly. When we touched down we were greeted to some kind of movie scene. There were police and army people directing and funnelling us into single file to collect our paper work and send us onto the next stage which looked like more paper work. I began chatting with a nice lady in the line who was moving from Sydney to Brisbane. Her husband and kids were already in their new house and she had just come back from tidying up loose ends. She was bubbly but also could tell she wasn’t looking forward to being away from her loved ones for 2 weeks. She and her husband had fled from Persia into Turkey years ago and made their way to Australia to start a new life. I was signalled to come forward and begin my paperwork process. I asked if I would be sent home to quarantine or would it be a hotel. sadly it was the later. It was explained to me that I had to stay for the full two weeks, if I left my room, attempted to smuggle anyone into my room or did anything Danny like I would be fined $13000. After collecting our luggage we were put on a bus and sent off to the hotel under the watchful eye of the Australian Army. I already was beginning to feel like a criminal and that I had done something naughty. At the hotel we were all sat down and given a brief from the hotel manager explaining meal times, fresh air breaks, their RSA policy and interestingly if there was a fire alarm and we all evacuated outside, our two weeks would start over again. My new friend and I swapped phone numbers so we could check up on each other and we were sent one by one to our rooms. My general manager had gone into quarantine 5 days before me when he had to fly down to Melbourne to pick up his daughters. He had sent me pictures of his pad and it looked good, separate rooms, big and spacious. I had grand plans of doing yoga every morning, working out, learning how to dance and doing some cool functional mobility exercises while I was in here, all of which would require some space. When I opened my door for the first time I was meet with a rather small room with very little space. I sat my bags down and felt lonely straight away. I had a good view from my window which was a positive and I got the feeling that I would be spending many hours looking out it and watching the world continue as normal while I did my time. I try and make bad situations better and take charge so I looked at the current lay out of the room and decided to change it. I moved the bed from the centre of the room and pushed it over in front of the window. Packed up the pointless couch against the wall and shuffled a few other things around which gave me open space and also a nicer view when sleeping. I had been spending a lot of time with an amazing girl before I left for work. My car was loaded with lots of things to try and help keep me amused. I let her know the address and she drove over and dropped them off at the hotel. I figured out what the streets were below me and she parked up and we talked on the phone while I was looking down from my room. Such a weird feeling. When she drove off I waited for my things to arrive. I waited and waited some more. Just as I was getting ready to go to sleep there was a knock and when I opened it there was a unamused looking police officer there with all my stuff. To be fair I had brought a guitar, little amp, reflex punching bag, weights, skipping rope, model cars to build, sound recording equipment so he had to wheel it all up to my room. It cant be confirmed or denied that there may have been some frowned upon substance hidden amongst my stuff, which was delivered to me by the police! I may or may not have found that very amusing and ironic!

The next morning, I woke and was feeling pretty good. First night down, couple more to go. So I set up my room with all of my stuff. Excellent, now it was 830ish. We were told that hotel staffing was not as high as normal so we had to be patient with them. Breakfast times were between 730 and 1030. Lunch 11.30 and 1330, tea was 1730 and 2030. Throughout the stay I found the meals to be way to small, average at best and its really annoying having to wait for the knock at the door to let you know that your food had arrived. We were not aloud to have any contact with the hotel staff. If you wanted to get a fresh air break you had to call up reception, request smoking or non smoking and then wait. This would become a thing of contention as the days went on. As mentioned I had given myself things I wanted to do and achieve while in here. Didn’t want to be laying around all day, watching shit on TV and feeling more like a prisoner than I had to. Keep your mind and body busy and have some sort of routine I thought would help me. It did for sure but further into the stay it became harder to stay motivated. The first week was rough I’m not going to lie. All of the days blurred into each other so its hard to remember exactly the order of events so I will surmise. I had posted a few videos to social media and I had a few of my old friends from back in Tassie call me up which was really nice and appreciated. My mum was sending me a few photos every day with the theme of “I remember when….” This was also really nice and gave me something to look forward to. I had forgot to pack a guitar pick so I cut up an old card and made some. Resourceful as always! Took a bath and drank some Jack Daniels while having a video call. I worked out which was the most important and consistent thing I did in here. I finally got to go outside for some fresh air after being inside for more than 48 hours. It felt once again like prison. The police came and got me from my room, took me down to the pool area. I quickly walked across the paved area and went to a corner so I could survey my surroundings. There was a handful of people there, some were walking, some were talking on their phones. There were about three police officers watching. I went up to them and asked if I could run and they said do what ever you like. So I started doing sprints back and forth. Used the hand rail for the pool entry to do some kind of pull ups and basically just went hard trying to burn as much energy off as possible. The lady cop asked me what do I do and I assumed she meant work wises so when I asked for confirmation she said she meant that I looked good, fit and strong and felt like she was being a little more friendly than needed. I decided to fuck with her and said something like “you have to stay in shape at all times when you roll with the people that I roll with” or something to that effect as I ran off. Apparently 20 minutes was the normal allocated time but I was very appreciative when they gave me 40 minutes to run around. My next fresh air break was the next night. No sunshine and I was getting annoyed. That day was the first time I felt down and angry. I could feel it building up inside. I took control of the situation and worked out and hit my punching bag. It worked. “Don’t let your self be a victim of circumstance for too long” I kept telling my self. The next day I finally got the knock on the door for some sunshine. I shared the lift down with a man and the police asked him how he ended up in lockdown. His mum had recently passed away so he had to drive across the boarder for the funeral. He said he had applied and been approved to come back to Queensland and had all the paperwork to prove this. When he reached the border he was denied. He had to than organise to put his car on a tow truck, get it sent to his home. Get himself to Ballina to catch a plane to Sydney to fly back to Brisbane to be put into lockdown. What a joke. It gave me some perspective that there is always people out there doing it harder than you. Poor guy got served a massive shit sandwich. Outside I did more of my workouts, pretended to look over the fence for ways to escape, run around doing some silly punch and kicks and tried to fuck with the police for my own amusement. I did one of the best handstands I’ve ever done near the police and the guy cop said “I could do that” I replied while still upside down “ Go on than” and he responded “I don’t want to!” I also picked a few little ferns from some of the trees that were out side to bring some colour and make my room that little bit nicer. The food continued to be small and very average and I was constantly hungry. I had to order Uber eats to many times. I was missing my freedom, couldn’t understand why I had to be inside, I was missing my girl, my dogs, my friends, my lifestyle and finding it harder and harder to stay the course and not let the situation get the better of me. I did some meditation, inner reflective thinking, yoga, made my model car, tried to write a song and play guitar, watched lots of UFC but there are many minutes in the day that need filling. Little things like trying to call reception and not getting through all the time, ordering water, waiting up to 6 hours for it to come, trying to be respectful to the staff because they have a job to do as well all became harder. Someone in my hallway isn’t doing well and I could here them having a altercation with the police about the lack of getting outside time. I had found out earlier on that you could ring up reception as soon as you returned from your break and get put on the list to go outside again. Some people were getting up to four breaks a day. I found this out when I hadn’t even felt the sun on my face so it didn’t help with my frustrations.

Finally I had reached the halfway point. Every day was the same, wake up. It's so quiet. Roll over look outside. Realise your're closer to something but not close enough. Close your eyes and think of where you would rather be. Get up, work out. Wait for breakfast. Hungry. Eat. Pace around the room. Control your thoughts. Request fresh air. Wait. Think of ways to kill time. Wait for lunch. Eat. Wait.

One particular day I was outside just enjoying the sun outside watching other people not social distancing, talking in groups, walking around like a scene from the Walking Dead thinking this is a bloody joke. I had read articles, and watched some news stories about our dumb ass premier’s staunch stance on the whole situation, denying people from seeing their dying family members and either playing God or Stalin. One of these three doesn’t have a moustache, guess which one! Any way, the next day I went to the outside area and the police had barricaded the pool area with deck chairs and police tape which means that because of the building lay out and the way the sun goes, we only got sunshine in the afternoon and from the area they have now blocked off. There was about 5 to 7 other people outside this day, compared to the 30 plus from the day before so I just stood alone and enjoyed being outside. You have to wear your mask of course but I had my nose exposed so I didn’t have to breath in my own exhaled air. The cop comes over to me and says bluntly that I have to put my mask on properly. Ok, no worries. I then decide to pick another little bit of plant life for my room. Same cop comes over just as I’ve picked it and tells me that I can’t do that. He’s getting to me now so I ask why and he says its hotel property. They call my room number and its time to go back to my room. As I walk to where the other cop is sitting, exercising his rights to not exercise, ever since he finished police academy it looks like. He says that I can’t take that with me. I can feel myself becoming irritated very quickly so I ask why. He says nothing is aloud to go into your room unless it gets delivered to the hotel reception. "It’s a plant” I say a little to aggressively but I don’t care. He says he doesn’t care. I tell him that police have helped me previously get plants for my room. He doesn’t care. We stare at each other until I throw the plant onto the table right in front of him and walk off with the other cop following me to the elevator. I’m angry. As the door shuts, me and the cop get into it as I let him know that I think its fucking stupid. He says that just because other police have let you do it before doesn’t make it right. I’ve lost self control.I fire back and tell him that we are breathing in recycled shit air con all day, plants help improve not only the air quality but also our mental well being. Little things like this help in a shitty situation. He stares at me and I stare at him until the door opens. I go back to my room, again needing to calm myself down. I decided that I will not be taking anymore air breaks for the remainder of my stay. I’m a man of principle and while it will mean nothing to those fuckwit power tripping police officers who give the rest of their peers bad names and reinforce a inaccurate view that all cops are assholes - I don’t want or need anything that they can give me or take me away. With out feeling the sunshine its not worth it to me to put on my clothes and go outside. Even though I’m locked in here my mind is free and FUCK YOU.

There has been some moments that have made me feel happy and peaceful. People have started writing on the footpath little messages to their loved ones, drawing and just bringing some colour to the mundane. One guy arrives on his scooter, parks up, draws and then burns off to do more good no doubt! One day as I was watching out my window he arrived and began to take his helmet off. A lady in a Mercedes SUV tried to park where you could easily fit but she was struggling. “Typical” I thought, but old mate jumped on his scooter and moved it so it was easier for the lady. They than talked to each other and were waving at the hotel. They started dancing in the street and laughing! It was awesome to watch! There has been so many people come and wave to their loved ones while on the phone just like me and my girl have done. It’s a good reminder that there are a lot of people going through the exact same thing as me.

The hours still tick by as I get closer to being released. I try and imagine what it would be like for people locked in real jail. Being separated by a piece of glass as they talk to their loved ones. I am convinced this is not the way to handle the Covid situation that we are in. Knee jerk reactions at a time when information was very limited still seem to be the way forward for dealing with this and for what ever reason a premier who continues to dig her heels in and not reassess the information and think of different options. How can a whole state like NSW and Queensland be classed as a hotspot making it mandatory to go into lockdown? A suburb or city sure, but this is dumb. We are breathing in the same air con in here as I mentioned before. I think that because Queensland has lost so much of its tourist economy with this that they are enforcing quarantine as a way to bring more money into the state. It cost one person approx $2300 for the two weeks to stay in the understaffed hotel eating shit food. Family of three I think was approx. $3000. I’m not good at maths but there was more easily more than 100 people on my plane. 100 people @ $2000 is $2200,000 I later read that Qld has 4000 rooms available per swing (assuming it’s based off a two week roster) for people to quarantine. That’s $11 million every two weeks going somewhere. My friend has had to come home from living in LA and she had no fresh air until the last 24 hours of her stay and she had to escalate that a long way to get even that. How is that humane? Where is the constancy? What the fuck are we doing here? It is very strange times that we are living in, thank goodness we are not living the same situations as places like Spain and Italy but horses for courses. 6 people have died in Qld from COVID. My other questions are why doesn’t the hotel put more staff on to make this two weeks less shit for everyone? They are getting paid so why don’t they allow more people the chance to make money and support their families? There would be less anger shown towards the overworked staff who as far as I can see are just trying to do their jobs. Even when they forget my lunch multiple times or my water doesn’t arrive or I cant get through to reception, I I have to try to remember they are also doing their best. I got tested to see if I have the COVID on Saturday. I got the results back on Sunday saying I didn’t. So why do I have to stay here until Wednesday?

I’m grateful for people who have contacted me, brought me supplies, sent messages, made me laugh, given me advice, hope, perspective, called and given me things to look forward to once I get out. I always try to live life to the full and squeeze as much out of it as I can. People tell me it's good to be still from time to time. I agree, BUT NOT FOR 2 WEEKS!!!