«In Australia, life is 99 per cent normal»
Series: Families and corona worldwide - Part 2
Sabrina Forlin, 38, is a marketing specialist at a university. The Swiss national emigrated to Australia nine years ago. She lives in Brisbane, Australia, with her partner Jonathan Miller, 40, and their two children Luca, 4, and Luna, 2. Here, English-born Jonathan Miller runs a men's hairdressing salon.
What is the current situation with the coronavirus in your country?
We live in Brisbane in the Australian state of Queensland. The coronavirus situation hardly affects us at all - we have very few active cases. We also don't have to wear masks and life feels 99 per cent normal. We are free to choose whether we want to work in the office or from home. I myself work in marketing at a university, but mainly from home. That's also how 80 per cent of my colleagues do it. I think people prefer to work from home, even if coronavirus wasn't an issue.
The border with the neighbouring state of New South Wales (where Sydney is also located) was reopened at the beginning of December. Other states were more severely affected; in the state of Victoria with the city of Melbourne, for example, the measures were only recently relaxed.
What is the work situation like for you and your partner?
Jonathan works five days a week. He is self-employed and works from Tuesday to Saturday in his men's hairdressing salon. I work three days a week, Monday to Wednesday, mainly from home. Sometimes I have to go to university for a meeting.
How is childcare organised?
The children are at the daycare centre on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
How close is Corona? Have you been in isolation or quarantine yourself?
Fortunately, we are all negative. Corona is really far away from us. In March, all of us adults in Queensland had to go into quarantine for five weeks as a precaution, but the daycare centre was still open and the government waived our daycare fees.
Christmas is just around the corner: do you already know how you're going to celebrate?
We will spend our Christmas either with friends by the sea or near a pool. It's a hot 35 degrees here in Brisbane at Christmas time. Our families in Switzerland and England can't celebrate with us, but we're used to that. That's why we always spend the festive season with family friends.
How do you experience the situation as a whole: has corona opened new doors for family life or rather caused additional stress?
Not much has changed for us personally, except that we were unable to travel to Switzerland in June as planned. And yet it is difficult to see how things are going in other countries - especially in our home countries. Especially because everything in Australia is now under control as far as corona is concerned.
I think Australia has managed the crisis quite well thanks to rigorous contact tracing and hard lockdowns (Melbourne was in lockdown for around five months in total!) - let's hope it stays that way.
What do you want for 2021?
That we can visit our families and travel without restrictions.
Read about the situation in America in part 3 of our series Families in everyday coronavirus life around the world. You can read all the family portraits published so far here: Families and Corona worldwide.
More about Corona:
- «Corona vaccination for children: in one year at the earliest»
What are the latest findings on the role of children in the current coronavirus crisis? And: Can a school require a corona test? Prof Dr Christoph Aebi provides important answers. - How much coronavirus can parents put their children through?
The second wave of coronavirus is here and every day we are confronted with news of new infections and new guidelines. How much should parents expect their children to be exposed to? And how do you react when the virus is really close; affecting friends, relatives or the child itself? Adolescent psychologist Nadine Messerli-Bürgy provides answers. - Coronavirus dossier
In this dossier, all articles containing relevant topics for families are collected on an ongoing basis.