Greater Sydney, which unfortunately, seems to encompass the Blue Mountains, is in its second lockdown following a blowout in the Covid Delta strain in recent weeks. Given what has happened in Melbourne and elsewhere, it was inevitable that sometime, somewhere, we would get hit again. And that's that. An inconvenience for most of us, a peril for those who are infected.

This does not go anywhere near to explaining the kinds of panic that seems to possess some folks when the word lockdown is applied. A lockdown is not a curfew. Even if it was, that is not reason to rush about in supermarkets as if the sky is falling - Australia produces its own food and when I last checked, Warragamba was nearly full. There seems to be a thing about toilet paper too - the mass buying of it - I mean. Tinned food - maybe that has a rational side to its purchase - but loo paper? Something deeper is going on.

I do feel sorry for all the workers and businesses that will have to close or vastly reduce their services in the next two weeks. For many casual employees, each paycheque goes on rent and food and utilities. They will have to dig deep, go into debt or fall back on the family. Far worse then anything in this lucky country are the kinds of suffering that are happening in many developing nations, whose economies have collapsed as trade and orders tailed off last year. Really, it behooves all wealthy nations to step up and support countries for whom globalisation was promised as a panacea for poverty. There are no excuses for inaction.