KEEPING an active mind has been the key to spending two weeks in isolation, according to Member for Mallee Anne Webster.
On Saturday, Dr Webster ended an enforced 14 days unable to move outside the four fences of her property before Federal Parliament resumed in Canberra on Monday due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr Webster said that while a coffee was high on the agenda after she and doctor-husband Phillip’s personal lockdown, missing family was the most difficult task of the fortnight.
“I do miss the routine of picking up a coffee on the way to work, and obviously I miss my family,” she said.
“But we’re all in stage 3 restrictions so the closest I can get to my three children and six grandchildren is Facetime.
“From my point of view the greatest heartache of all of these restrictions and lockdowns is missing your family.
“We all miss those things that are just a normal part of our lives.
“We’ve had to adapt, all of us, every person in Australia has had to adapt one way or another and to one extreme or another.”
The quarantine was imposed on politicians living Victoria who intended to attend Federal Parliament this week and Dr Webster said there had been no shortage of work to do, even at home.
“I haven’t left the property at all and I’ve hardly stepped out of the house,” she said.
“People have delivered food to us and very occasionally they have delivered a coffee.
“I didn’t pre-think about it — it was just, ‘This is the way it is, let’s just get on with it’.
“If you were twiddling your thumbs at home I think it would be really, really difficult.”
However, Dr Webster said “fortunately” she had a never-ending amount of work to do.
“I can’t believe two weeks is up,” she said.
“Phillip has been working from home doing telehealth, so he has to do scripts and other work that needs to be picked up by staff early in the morning and my staff have had to drop off stuff to me, which has all been left on the front doorstep,” she said.
“We just had to make sure that we had appropriate computers and paperwork at home.”
She said work had entirely consisted of Zoom meetings, phone conferencing and emails, but looked forward to returning to “normal” life.
“We’ve got to believe that it is going to happen, but that may not happen until we get a vaccine,” she said.
“Obviously there has been talk about that being next year and I certainly hope that that is the case, but in the interim these restrictions and the changes to our life, some aspects perhaps will never go.
“I suspect there will be considerable restrictions, but my hope is that our state border restrictions will be lifted sooner rather than later because I don’t think they are assisting us and things like a travel permit are far more important.”
Dr Webster said that as part of the quarantine procedure both she and her husband were required to undergo a COVID-19 test on day 12 of the 14 days in isolation.
Both tests returned a negative result.
