Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

A lot of talk around mental health at the moment, and rightly so. This lockdown feels tougher, and we’re right to feel deflated by it, our lockdowns are stricter than Australia’s. In Melbourne you can still meet up for coffee with people outside your bubble, exercise with someone outside of your bubble, go out for takeaways, coffees, flowers.  My girlfriend in Sydney says basically most businesses are considered essential and are therefore open, the same mixing of bubbles applies, and there’s more movement. That’s arguably why it’s spreading faster, but it pays to remember their lockdown is not our lockdown, so we are rightly feeling the pinch of our super strict Level 4 rules. Some say the mental health shadow pandemic will be bigger than the Covid one. In Australia it already is. There are 342 young people a week in Victoria being admitted to hospital for mental health issues, 40 kids a day in New South Wales. It’s tough.  Anxiety levels are through the roof, isolation is triggering all sorts of feelings, a