A new dawn

There has never been a new year quite like 2021. But then, there has never been a year like 2020. It was, to coin a phrase, practically biblical. Fires, plague and protests all culminated into a feeling of exhausted dread; as if by the end of 2020 we were slouching, not toward Bethlehem, but Hades.

And just when we thought we could step, gingerly into 2021 with cautious optimism, along came the Covid clusters. A group in Sydney, another lot in Victoria, a handful in Queensland and Western Australia. And with them, the restrictions, border closures and threats of yet another lockdown.