How nice would it be if people could simply do the right thing?
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If they did, we'd move into a "new normal" COVID-19 world a lot quicker and everyone could go about their daily lives.
Businesses would thrive, people would go on holidays and there wouldn't be the head-shaking disbelief about the actions of a few.
It's not like we are new to restrictions. We're nearly two years into this pandemic. But still people in the city with a big coat hanger of a bridge stretch and break the rules.
Regional areas of New South Wales have generally been the good citizens throughout the last 18 months.
Sure, there's been the odd flare-up, but none of the magnitude that we've seen coming out of the Sydney metro area.
Why are the good kids of the class suffering purely because of the two or three people who sit at the back of the classroom and fly paper aeroplanes? You know the ones I'm talking about.
Let's lay this out.
At the start of September, Hunter police charged four tree-loppers after they returned to Lake Macquarie, breaching the Public Health Order for the second time in a month.
It has since been confirmed one of the males had provided inaccurate information to obtain a Service NSW permit to leave Greater Sydney and enter regional NSW.
Poor old Lake Macquarie and Newcastle entered what was meant to be a snap seven-day lockdown at the start of August because of a teenager who wanted to attend a beach party.
The teen broke lockdown rules, travelled up the coast and infected numerous people with COVID. Lake Macquarie is now approaching eight weeks of lockdown, largely due to the fact someone didn't do the right thing.
Newcastle and the Hunter region's case numbers have now spiralled out of control and are bordering on 1000.
There was a 22-year-old woman with her three kids in tow who jumped on a train from Sydney headed for Coffs Harbour on September 9. The police stopped the train at Kempsey where she was then transferred to Port Macquarie for hotel quarantine - introducing a case into our area.
She has since been charged with breaching public health orders.
Then you have a 31-year-old woman who was working on the set of reality show I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here! as a makeup artist.
While she gained an exemption that allowed her to travel to Byron Bay from Sydney on September 18, she has since been charged over multiple breaches of public health orders due to the fact she didn't stick to the letter of the exemption.
She was out in the community when she should have been just working and going back to her hotel.
As a result, Byron Bay and Lismore went into a seven-day snap lockdown after she visited venues while rarely using QR codes to check in. They've only just come out.
All of which brings me to Port Macquarie and the current predicament the LGA finds itself in after a person travelled here from Sydney on September 16.
Port Macquarie entered a seven-day lockdown on September 29.
Investigations are continuing as to whether they breached Public Health Orders in a near week-long stay on the Mid North Coast while supposedly viewing real estate.
That loophole in itself is something the NSW state government needed to close a long time ago, but that's a discussion for another day.
If they're so concerned about protecting the regions, why have 57,000 exemptions to inspect real estate been handed out since August 20?
I'm sure the people of Lake Macquarie, Newcastle, Byron Bay, Port Macquarie and numerous other regions across NSW would be all ears.
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