Tyler and Heidi Wiebe moved with their two daughters to Australia in January 2020 for health reasons. After living in Niverville his whole life, Tyler was experiencing migraines so severe that the family decided they were willing to change continents, attracted by the stable weather pressure systems on the east coast near Brisbane.

Tyler works remotely for a biosciences company headquartered in the United States. Heidi is a registered nurse who left her position in healthcare management and was able to secure a position as a technology project coordinator for Queensland University.

Ironically, their move around the world put them much closer to the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic than if they had stayed in Manitoba—and their job experiences have given them a unique perspective.

They moved in the first week of January and gained access to their apartment on January 16. Tyler’s company, Emergent Biosolutions, is working with cutting edge biodefence technology to address approaches to treating COVID-19. He is used to working remotely, but not necessarily under these kinds of stressors. Meanwhile, Heidi began her job at Queensland University on January 20, and it’s put her in touch with a number of students returning to Australia from China.

“Within a week of starting, I was experiencing people coming back from China, PhD students in particular, and they were already completing their two-week period of isolation,” says Heidi. “So that’s when I started to learn about what was going on and experience it as real. Public Health in Australia, as well as the average person, was dealing with this in January and early February already.” 

Early Response 

According to the Wiebes, Australia’s response was very quick. Restrictions on travel were imposed early on, self-isolation was recommended for travellers, and hand-washing, hand hygiene, and better cough and sneeze etiquette were all encouraged. The elementary schools there have had an online learning platform available for the past five weeks, universities have held online classes for over a month now, and nonessential staff has been working from home for about three weeks.

Similar to how it was rolled out in Manitoba, the Wiebes experienced a sequence of public health orders. Their government recommendations now include restricting public gatherings to a maximum of 10 people, nonessential businesses have temporarily shut down, and public parks are closed.

But the differences can be felt in Australia’s national approach, since residents there have been instructed not to have more than two visitors over to their home. Children of essential workers are actually still going to school at this time, and public school teachers are providing supervision to help ease the burden on childcare institutions.

Interstate travel has been also been restricted.

“We experienced a sequential withdrawing of social interactions ,[and now] with interstate travel restrictions, this affects towns close to interstate borders a lot, like where I work at Queensland,” Heidi says. “And you are not to be leaving your suburb unless it’s for essential purposes. Police are monitoring, likely through visually identifying license plates, and pulling you over, asking you where you are going and for what purpose. And you have to be going out for essential purposes or they will ask you to turn around and go home.”

She says their family benefits from their healthcare knowledge. They were already cautious going into February and pulled their kids from school early due to health concerns.

As a nurse, Heidi hasn’t been surprised by the measures and has seen their benefits firsthand.

“If you don’t have personal experience, sometimes it’s hard to wrap your brain around how real this is,” she says. “Having worked in personal care homes and taken care of our older adults, influenza is bad enough with them. I take great heart in that our public health professionals and medical professionals are doing a great job.” 

Doesn’t Feel Real 

After a whirlwind move, she says the family has been able to slow down and spend more time together. But family time at home during a pandemic is not the same as at any other time, and the Wiebes have experienced some disappointment from cancelling plans. The family had a vacation planned to Disneyworld and was supposed to have left for Florida on March 24.

When they reached out to tell others they weren’t going to go, many thought they were overreacting.

“It was the first week of March when we told our in-laws that this wasn’t going to happen, and they thought we were crazy,” says Heidi. “Our North American family still feels like it’s not real to them. My parents are very practical. They are in their late 60s to early 70s, and none of their children are living in Manitoba anymore. They are very aware of the fact that they do not have a support system in place. Others, they haven’t seen anyone close to them be sickened or die from this… and maybe some of them aren’t following the social distancing as they should. But it feels different when you’ve been sitting with someone who’s been through it. It was definitely impactful.” 

Newcomers to Australia 

As newcomers, the Wiebes had just been dipping their toes into life in Australia and beginning to explore and enjoy their new surroundings. This situation has made it difficult for them to continue with regular schoolwork and the extracurriculars they had just begun. It’s also ended their ability to physically check out their new community.

“Both our kids are in competitive swimming, which is right out. Some of their musical involvement, such as choir or instrument studies, are cancelled,” says Heidi. “Because we were quite new, our kids hadn’t gotten into too many activities, but as a family we had gotten out to the beach nearly every weekend. Now there’s no going to the beach, no going for hikes up in the hills.”

Australia’s geography is similar to Canada’s in that the population is quite spread out, so the social distancing tips we have in Manitoba are familiar to Heidi. Instead of far-reaching day trips, the Wiebes have been staying close to home while still trying to explore and check out different things.

“We’ve been getting to know our little suburb very well,” says Heidi. “We’re doing lots of walking. There are lots of urban lifestyle areas around our area, with lots of paved walking paths and biking paths. But the playgrounds are all closed.”

Getting to know your neighbours looks a little differently now, but it’s nonetheless important. Heidi says the government has not disallowed visiting with friends or neighbours, as long as it’s conducted with the appropriate distance.

“Friends can go for a walk together, just two of them, doing the hockey-stick distance thing. That is allowed,” says Heidi. “You can stand on your driveway and visit with neighbours, but everyone is really adhering to the distancing.”

Also similar to Manitoba, many grocery stores are offering click-and-collect options to reduce community spread.

And yes, you guessed it, there’s also been scarcity of toilet paper.

“Oh yeah, people went crazy. Toilet paper was out of stock here, too, at the end of February,” she says. “Hand sanitizer stocks are coming back. Cleaning supplies never ran out. At first our click-and-collect options got overwhelmed, and systems were down, but now they are getting back up and running. There are delivery options for older citizens or high-risk citizens. Grocery stores are monitoring how many citizens are inside the grocery stories.” 

We’ve Been Lucky 

Aside from the shared challenge of finding toilet paper, Heidi says she can identify with what so many other parents are going through right now regarding working from home while providing an education for their children.

“Trying to provide some kind of quality education while both parents are working full-time from home has been very, very challenging,” says Heidi. “You can get your kids set up doing all the online stuff, but at some point they need some help and direction, such as with fractions. It’s that instructional piece that is missing. That’s a concern, if we’re looking at another term of school being affected by this.”

Their children are also trying to understand what social distancing means while dealing with the disappointment of not seeing their friends and cancelling plans.

Regarding the spread of COVID-19, the Wiebes see similarities in the number of confirmed cases in Australia and how community spread is being impacted by the success of public health strategies. They are hopeful social distancing will be gradually lifted.

“We are lucky in how we’re handling this right now,” Heidi says. “Even though we have some challenges with our public health measures and emergency preparedness, we’ve done not bad. There will be huge economic spinoffs that we’ll have to deal with, but we’ve been lucky with this one. We really have. If this had happened 50 years ago, it would’ve been really bad. We’ve created our own way of spreading this through our interconnectedness, but some of our interconnectedness, communication, and technology will help us get through this. Overall I’m really thankful.”

Australia has not released any official statement on when their social distancing measures will begin to relax, and the schools have speculated they will be out until at least May 19. From a practical standpoint, Heidi points out that the number of COVID-19 cases there have been trending downward and will have to continue to do so for at least two or three incubation period cycles.