After a solid month in lockdown, people in NSW are growing louder in their demands for single person bubbles to be established in the state to help the mental health and wellbeing of people who are toughing it out alone.
There’s been endless tweets and posts, questions avoided at press conferences, and people exasperatedly writing about how crucial it is to have social support in isolating times, and now people have taken the next logical step: started a petition.
The change.org petition, launched by Melanie Tait (who also wrote an opinion piece on the dire need for single bubbles in NSW for The Guardian this week) has been up for a couple of days at the time of writing, and is just a shave under 1000 signatures.
Sure, it might not seem like much, but the message is clear and powerful: follow the lead of Victoria, South Australia, and the UK and extend the intimate partner rule out to single people living isolated in locked-down areas, so they’re able to form a social bubble with one other person.
“If intimate partners who don’t live together are able to socialise in each other’s homes, it makes no sense why those with relationships not classed as intimate can’t form a bubble with another person,” Melanie said in the petition’s statement.
“Relationships and friendships take many different forms and single people who live alone shouldn’t be penalised for not having a traditional sexual relationship in their lives.”
Melanie said that as someone who’s lived with depression, small things like interacting with friends and maintaining platonic relationships is vital to help with feelings of isolation. She believes that a single person bubble would be a “quick-solve to help people get through this time”, and it’s hard to see the downside in this.
Of course an important part of trying to get the Delta variant outbreak under control in NSW is to limit the movement of residents in hot zones and throughout the state, but if people who are rooting can see each other under compassionate reasons, why can’t people who are living alone have one (1) chosen person visit them and vice-versa?
It just makes sense, and will help avoid a much bigger mental health problem further down the track once the lockdown is done and NSW starts to ease back into some semblance of normal life (where you’ll all probably be as socially-warped as us Melburnians).
So if you’ve been saying “yes!” to no one in particular the whole time you’ve been reading this article, you know where the petition is to make your voice heard.
If you need mental health support, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or chat online.
Under 25? You can reach Kids Helpline at 1800 55 1800 or chat online.
If you require immediate assistance, please call 000.
