As most of you know, I am an Englishman. I’ll often get calls from friends and family checking in on us, usually my mum making sure I’m being sun-smart, that our brick built block in heavily urbanised Sydney hasn’t burnt to the ground or isn’t up to the roof in flood water even though we live on a hill, and Barb and the kids haven’t been eaten by sharks – those sort of things. I would never have thought in a million years I’d get concerned callers asking how we are coping without toilet paper or risking our own lives trying to buy some!

OK, so here at Duck and Dive we are not an authority on illness and disease but, we have been round the block a few times so here are some observations and requirements going forward.

Observations:

–              Since 2001, the world has endured several diseases that threatened to wipe out mankind; Anthrax, West Nile virus, SARS, Bird flu, Ecoli, Swine flu, Ebola and MERS not to mention the regular old flu. Whilst Covid19 is new, our response as a human race to medical challenges is not new. We have measured up to pandemics and epidemics in the past and we shall do so again to Covid19.

–              It’s interesting to reflect on how the media can sometimes report. For example in May last year the Guardian headlined with “Flu experts predict 4000 Australians will die from influenza in 2019”. The latest available source (Australian Dept of Health Influenza Surveillance Report to October 2019) confirms total deaths as 812. A follow up article that never happened might have read “Flu deaths 80% down from experts’ first prediction of 2019” but as we have seen, the media tend to favour the sensationalist angles which in the case of covid19 have created mass hysteria ?.

–              As at the date of this article, 63% of the confirmed cases in Australia have fully recovered on their own. The 2 fatalities in Australia had existing health complications which meant they were sadly unable to fight the virus. They were aged 95 years and 78 years respectively.

–              Nowhere seems safe from the virus, not even your own home because every person that crosses your doorstep has not been “in quarantine”. Consider also who your family has been in contact with and where they have been on a daily basis.

–              The likelihood of you catching Covid19 in a clean environment like a swimming pool offers less risk than many other places you will go to on a weekly/daily basis given that we have an exclusion policy and there are a minimum number of people that you could be in contact with at any time. Your child is also in close contact with you at all times.

Requirements:

–              Cough etiquette is imperative. There are hand sanitisers at Kogarah and Artarmon available for use.

–              No-one is to attend lessons with any flu like symptoms

–              No-one is to attend lessons having travelled from a place or within a time limit as banned by the Australian Government.

–              Discourage high risk groups eg elderly spectators from attending lessons.

–              Only refer to trusted sources and ignore social media unless it’s a light hearted meme of course!

To conclude, life goes on. As a family we are taking the same precautions as you and rest assured that as business we will be doing everything we can and of course as per government advice.

Now, has anyone got any loo paper…..?