With the end of lockdown in sight, it is interesting to consider what we will recall of these troubled months when Covid-19 went from being a far-away foreign disease to a menace on our own streets.
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One great thing to take away from the experience is that Australians in general and Ballarat in particular should be proud of their collective efforts to curb the contagion.
So far this restraint and altruistic denial have wrought a fantastic outcome; one of the lowest rates of infection and death in the world.
Leadership too was on display in its gravity to listen to the experts, act with swiftness and hold fast to its principle.
The reward has been measured in human lives, possibly thousands of them.
If this seems to fanciful, one only needs to look at the poor leadership in some of the worst hit nations; the procrastination and folly, the deliberate polarisation and the incitement to defiance, to see that even in the most developed nations how fine the line is between a collective victory and a human disaster.
Of course, the economy has taken a hit in all this but who would make the ethical justification of protecting it above those thousands of lives.
The economic pain is sure to continue even after the spectre of the virus recedes and The Courier has highlighted just how many in our own community have potentially slipped through the economic safety net.
All the more reason that the community spirit, the neighbourly generosity, concern and loyalty which have shone in Ballarat during these hard months, should be the characteristics to take with us into recovery and help build a better city for the future.