Be Responsible.

I don’t ever like to think of my blog as giving advice. I share my own perspective on life with diabetes, you digest that however which way you wish. But today I’m going to break that rule and step on my soapbox for the next couple of minutes.

Earlier this evening, I came across a thread in a closed Facebook group. Not a diabetes one, for the record. The post in question was asking whether she was required to follow her employer’s request to self isolate at home for 14 days following upcoming overseas travel. For the record, her employer was rightly following direction from the Australian government.

What was worse was the commenters that followed. There were comments indicating no awareness of the requirement to self isolate, comments indicating no intention to self isolate following upcoming overseas travel, and comments suggesting that they were at equal risk in a retail workplace.

Not to mention that earlier this week, I learned that a friend had been in contact with someone who had not self isolated upon returning from overseas travel.

I just cannot believe that this is up for discussion.

This is not about what other people are or aren’t doing to precaution the spread of the Coronavirus.

This is not about how ‘fine’ you are feeling after overseas travel.

This is not about how ‘unlikely’ you are to observe symptoms.

This is not about how ‘low risk’ we currently are here in Australia.

This is not even about how disadvantaged you might be from not being able to go to work.

This is about protecting the people around you. The people you come into contact with every day and love and enjoy spending time with and hopefully don’t want to see harmed. It’s about minimising the spread of, from what I’m hearing is a highly contagious virus. It’s about minimising the burden on our health system here that will have to deal with this.

I count my lucky stars that I live in Australia every single day, and I really hope that the situation here remains the low risk that it currently is. I truly believe that responsibility rests on each and every one of us.

If you have returned from overseas travel, please think of the people around you and follow the government’s direction to self isolate at home for 14 days. If you are not feeling well, please think of the people around you and stay at home (or seek medical attention). Please wash your hands regularly. I’ve been doing this for years, and quite honestly it’s been my best defence against illness. Touch wood. And try not to touch your eyes, mouth or face.

A lot of this is simply common sense, regardless of what is currently happening.

I don’t believe that we need to panic, but we do need to be responsible.

I’ll leave a link to the Department of Health website here.

I’ll also leave a link to this post from Diabetes Daily around Coronavirus and diabetes.

I’m also finding the Twitter ‘Moments’ that pop up on my search page extremely useful for news updates on Coronavirus.

I’ll step down from my soapbox now.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.