“Complete your diary,” my Covid-19 tracer app urged me as I opened it for the first time in a while. I had opened it because I was planning on going to the beach that weekend and wanted to make sure I was in the clear. The little yellow alert icon under ‘dashboard’ momentarily caused me panic, afraid it was a notification I had somehow missed. 

The app confirmed that I had Bluetooth tracing on but underneath that section it said: ‘0 of the last 14 days have recorded entries’.

“It is useful to fill out past days in your diary, including days you stayed home,” read the fine print underneath.

Surely that couldn’t be right, I thought? I couldn’t have stayed home for that long and not realised, could I? 

I’m what Dr Bloomfield might call an ‘assiduous scanner’. Since recording our movements and scanning into locations was introduced as a public health measure, I have been pedantic about logging my whereabouts.

As a naturally cautious person, I liked that scanning in was a tangible action I could take. It made me feel like that small gesture was helping our team of five million fight one of our toughest challenges yet. I saw scanning in as one of our best forms of protection in a pandemic and that I had a duty to protect anyone I encounter while I go about my day. 

I clicked on the little icon and true enough, I was met with blocks of dates with nothing underneath except for an ‘add diary entry’ call to action. I had been at home for 14 days straight without even realising it. I scrolled further back and saw only a handful of recorded outings. 

At the time of writing, I had left the house a grand total of six times since the start of 2022 – three times to the movies, once for work, and the rest, I was either at the supermarket, visiting a hospitality joint, or bookstores. 

Now summer is nearly over, the Omicron surge is upon us with the virus rampant in the community. As a country, our response has changed and most of the responsibility has been shifted to individuals. Risk assessment is a skill we are all slowly sharpening as we decide what’s safe for us or not in a time where our actions affect each other more than ever. 

There is a specific option in the app that says “I stayed home”, so you can just click on that instead of typing your location. I wondered how many other people were in the same position, staying home and still limiting their movements despite the fact that we are no longer in lockdown.

“Stay home, save lives” was embedded into us during the early days of the pandemic, so no wonder that we are still using it as a guide to navigating these now precedented, unprecedented times.

But being able to stay home is a privilege. It was a privilege even during the first time we went into lockdown, as the rest of us were expected to stay put except for the people in the frontline and all the essential workers keeping things running. 

It is glaringly obvious now, more than ever, that staying home and saving lives is only possible for some. And if our aim is to slow the spread instead of eliminate it, knowing that a lot of people are unable to work from home, then we’re only really slowing the spread for a certain section of society unless we can offer a more equitable response.

I keep seeing a lot of arguments around the inevitability of catching Omicron now that it’s in our community and to me the subtext is – I’m going to just live my life and not worry about it anymore. 

It also feels like a coping mechanism for some. Accepting the ‘inevitable’ before it happens.

I disagree. I’m vaccinated and boosted, but I live with people who are under 18 and cannot be boosted, as well as vulnerable people. It feels careless to gamble with the unknown. My actions and personal choices have serious consequences while we’re still in the middle of the storm. 

I keep coming back to my duty of care and feeling responsible to keep those around me out of harm's way. Knowing the inequities of our response, of the strain the healthcare system is already under, is it really too much to ask those of us in a position of privilege to sacrifice for just a little longer?

I went to the beach on the weekend with my parents. After being cooped up at home by choice, it feels even more special to be leaving the comforts of my house now. 

As someone who had a very active social life pre-pandemic, known for dinners that last until midnight on a Monday and only using my room as a place to crash before I’m up early and out again, outings have now reached a new standard: am I willing to take a risk for this? 

Turns out, there’s not a lot of things I am willing to risk it all for. So if I’ve seen you at all in these past two months, then I must really like you! 

Or I must really like your food. I’ve been trying to support local hospitality as much as I can and I can only hope to get back to my late Monday dinners out soon. But for now I’ll keep hunkering down, clicking ‘I stayed home’ on my tracer app daily, painfully aware of the privilege in doing so.