At the age of 23, three weeks ago I made the decision to get the AstraZeneca vaccine at my local GP.
While a midday visit to the GP is usually reserved for oldies with common age-applicable ailments, I was met by a waiting room of young people eagerly getting jabbed with a vaccine often maligned by anti-vaxxers and the so-called hesitants.
While Gen Z and Millennials are met with a gutting feeling of our young years wasting away, we are doing all we can to ensure we can make the most of them again.
Last week, a whopping 5 per cent of 16-39-year-olds in New South Wales received their first vaccine. A figure that has been propelled by the changing conversations about who can have which vaccines.
As a twenty-something living in inner city Sydney, I am thankful for many things. Up until this lockdown, my life had remained largely unaffected by Victorian-style lockdowns.
Even in this lockdown those Sydneysiders in the south-west and western suburbs are bearing the brunt of measures designed to keep the Delta strain at bay.
Now Delta is coming down harder on Gen Zs and Millennials than previous strains. Tragically, the Delta strain is taking the lives of our comrades and hospitalising many more.
Of the 62 cases in intensive care in NSW, three are in their 20s and seven are in their 30s. Of everyone in ICU, 57 haven’t been vaccinated and the rest have had just one jab.
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On top of this, young people are more impacted by the ripples of the economic fallout that comes with the nation’s capitals shutting up shop. The industries we hold up with aprons and smiles to nagging Karens have become sterilised by inactivity.
Our dreams of business and home ownership are being put more and more on the backburner for the masses. Then there is the ever-present mental health and wellbeing impact. The things that keep us, as old timers would say, “out of trouble”, are all closed – think bars, gyms, nightclubs and those expensive brunch hubs.
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Our employment prospects and livelihoods are waiting for 20 per cent of Australians that are reportedly hesitant to get the vaccine to pull up their socks and get the jab.
Having lived under the microscope of restrictions for nearly two years, we have seen the ebb and flow of societal trends. The start of lockdown in 2020 was epitomised by buying into the hustle and finding a hobby. We strode to launch new side projects and make the most of our time at home.
Just prior to the pandemic, Sydneysiders Lauren Meisner and Jordyn Christensen bit the bullet, left their stable media careers and launched Gen Z geared news platform, Centennial Beauty. A few months into their content project, Covid-19 arrived. Like many young people, they dealt with the unknown of the 2020 outbreak by diving into work.
“We were incredibly lucky with our timing which feels ridiculous to say,” says co-founder Jordyn Christensen. “We were at a point where we didn’t have any overhead expenses, so navigating closures of office spaces or staff working from home weren’t issues for us … It gave us time to build the foundations of our brand at our own pace.
“Now, a year and a half in, we are navigating expenses like office space and managing our first staff members working remotely.”
Meisner and Christensen used the pandemic as an opportunity to focus, drilling down into their work and building their audience. However, like with the majority of young people that found solace in the hustle in 2020, this round of lockdowns seems more strenuous.
“Emotionally, this lockdown is more draining,” says Meisner. “I think many of us in Australia, especially Millennials and Gen Z, are feeling the weight of the botched vaccine rollout. I think there’s a collective feeling of hopelessness and worry that it could be another year or longer until life gets back on track and families are reunited.
“That takes a huge toll on our mental health and thus greatly impacts our ability to produce at work.”
Down in Victoria, Lachlan Bradford is another content creator who has used the pandemic as a catalyst to shift his career and life perspective. A former recruitment consultant, Bradford has evolved his Funny Business podcast audience and co-founded his digital content hub the Wellbeings Network with two fellow Millennial business partners.
As a Melburnian he is well equipped with the monotony of lockdowns.
“This sixth lockdown has been particularly harder than the rest,” says Bradford. “I think getting a taste of freedom and having it stripped back in an instant is a real reality check of where we’re at right now. It impacts the work because productivity goes down. But, we’re also learning a lot about ourselves, so it’s not all bad.”
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In an interview with youth-targeted news podcast The Daily Aus, New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian thanked young people for their patience negating the ongoing impact lockdown has had on our livelihoods. She cheered us on as we continue to come out in droves to arm ourselves with vaccinations.
Politicians like Ms Berejiklian also call on young people to innovate, take risks and invest in education. The emergence of thinkers and hustlers like Meisner, Christensen and Bradford, shows that we are doing just that.
Yet at the same time, us young folk are dealt with frustrating uneasiness about vaccines and continued cuts to financial assistance.
While some unvaccinated Boomers sit in their mortgage-free castles sipping expensive wine, we are eagerly anticipating the subsidisation of vaccine hesitancy so we can return to bolstering our LinkedIns, exploring relationships and, yes, even making time for stupidly expensive brunches.
I guess all we can do now is get the jab and wait.
Will Cook is a freelance writer.
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