Di and John Leask of Ulmarra know firsthand what it is like to be forced to quarantine in a confined space with no fresh air for 14 days straight.

The couple said that they have empathy for the residents of Melbourne’s high-density housing, who have been put into lockdown due to the emerging COVID-19 clusters.

The Leask’s were among the first lot of cruise ship passengers to be forced to quarantine for 14-days in Perth, after their ‘trip of a lifetime’ cruise was cut short after the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, back in March.

The Independent asked the Leask’s to share what it was like for them, being forced to quarantine –

“We had 21 days of isolation on board the ship before we reached Western Australia,” John said.

“Our ship, Vasco Da Gama was completely free of sickness when it docked in Perth.

“We were put up in a hotel in Perth for the 14-days of isolation, which affected Di more than me,” he said.

Di said that people really don’t realise how it feels, when you no longer have the ability to leave your room and are you deprived of breathing in any fresh air. 

“We couldn’t open a window, we had no balcony and had limited facilities,” Di said.

“We had a 5-star room – but it was a 5-star room designed to be serviced every day. The rooms didn’t come with any washing facility, microwave, cleaning products, dishwashing liquid or tea towel etc.

“We’ve been watching the news (over the last week) and seeing the faces of these people confined to their high-density housing; we really do empathise with them.

“It’s that feeling of being locked in and the loss of liberty; more or less you’re a prisoner.

“I feel for the ones who have kids, anyone with special needs or even the smokers, because the smokers really did it tough when we were in quarantine.

“They weren’t given patches (to assist with their cravings) and weren’t allowed to smoke in the rooms or have a drink. One lady we knew spent the first eight days in bed because she was a really heavy smoker and she just had to go cold turkey,” she said.

Independent: From your first-hand experience, what do you think the residents who are currently confined in Melbourne’s high-density towers, would be experiencing at the moment?

“I can understand that being locked up in those towers, these people have totally lost all rights. Those rights have been stripped away overnight and unless you’ve been in that situation, you don’t understand how it can hit you emotionally,” John said.

“It’s like childbirth unless you’ve been there you will not understand it. “People who have never had mental illness will never understand mental illness.

“COVID-19 is not just a physical problem and I think that the mental and emotional damage will be a real hidden cost of COVID-19 and I believe that it will be a health issue that will carry on for a long, long time,” he said.

Di said that the quarantine situation in Victoria is definitely something that the State needs to do to get COVID-19 under control but believes that it places people in a traumatic situation.

“There was no warning and no time to prepare (for the lock down) and (as many who live there are from different cultural backgrounds) language would probably be a really big barrier for some of them,” Di said.

John said that during their time in quarantine, they saw the effects that being confined can have on people.

“We had one man at our hotel who (in the past) had suffered a workplace injury as a boiler maker and he was confined to his room,” John said.

“We could all hear him screaming because he needed fresh air and, in the end, he was taken away to a mental health institution, because he had a total breakdown. I can see this happening in these high-density towers, with people who cannot cope.

“As Aussies we are a little bit complacent. We do live in the lucky country and have not experienced this sort of situation before.

“This is real.

“People who have had COVID-19 – it’s not the flu, that you just get over.

“Some people are left with lifelong lung problems, clotting issues, heart problems and kidney problems; it’s far worse than anyone could imagine,” he said.  

Independent: So, (on a lighter note) your trip of a lifetime was cancelled due to COVID-19. How far were you into your trip and what will your travel plans be in the future?

“We were about six weeks into our trip, and we weren’t due back in Australia until the middle of August – so at the moment we would have been in Scotland and Ireland,” John said.

“I have Scottish heritage and we were planning to attend our international clan meeting, which is held in Scotland every year, and this was going to be my first – so that’s disappointing,” he said.

“During this trip were going to tick off a whole stack of things on our bucket list, like the lost city of Petra, the pyramids and India,” Di said.

“It hasn’t stopped us – we’ve already booked another cruise for April next year. We are hopeful, but we are not sure that it will go ahead and due to our age, we will have to be a bit more careful.

“So, in the interim we’ll stick with trips within Australia and New Zealand, oh, and heaps of trips to Bunnings,” they said laughing.