Alison Drover, Broken Head
How about a day of ‘thank you’ to our health workers and ‘sorry’ from our prime minister and ‘please’ from the community?
Instead of protesting and arguing about masks, can we all perhaps look to a national weekly day of coming together for a few minutes as a country to say ‘thank you’. In the UK they clapped outside their houses, perhaps we could sing like the Samoans, grateful for the opportunity to work?
Thank you to the health workers, to the doctors and nurses, the scientists, pathologists, and paramedics all doing their best at present to navigate difficult times. They all have families and lives and can’t just ‘opt out’ at present. They wear masks all day. They seem to have been forgotten in the debate.
Has anyone wondered what it would be like if all these people decided to protest and just not turn up? We can have a lifetime of wellness but the best of us can still get caught out – and there we are, needing their support.
Let’s join together and all acknowledge their work and efforts in what is a very challenging situation, whatever side of the device you sit on.
They wear masks all day, work long hours and deal with people that are often not at their best or who are trying to be brave. Whatever you believe in, start protesting for a show of compassion for those professionals whom we will rely on at some point in our lives.
As for our prime minister, how much it would mean to hear him say ‘I am sorry’ when interviewed this week? To hear him say ‘I got it wrong, I see that there could have been a better way, I am human, I make mistakes’ or ‘I am going to do whatever I can to rectify things’ or ‘I am truly sorry and I can only imagine what this must be like for people to be so confused at present’.
Lastly, please, can we all stop making excuses or justifying why we can cross borders, or nip out to get supplies when we are meant to be isolating?
The longer we only think about ourselves, the longer we are in this together.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
