A ST HELENS mum living in Australia with her family has spoken out about feeling trapped in the country for 16 months – with no end date in sight.

Born and bred in St Helens, Vicky Toole, her husband Stephen, and her two teenage children emigrated to Australia in 2017 after having long-standing dreams of moving there.

However, due to the coronavirus pandemic and the Australian government’s strict handling of it, she says this dream has turned into a nightmare – and not being able to return home to see her parents has damaged her well-being.

Like many nations around the world, Australia closed its borders in March 2020 in order to fight rising coronavirus infections – something Vicky agrees was the right decision at the time as it enabled life to carry on relatively as normal, with few infections and deaths in the country.

As a long-term response, the country adopted a “zero covid” policy to manage the crisis, with the goal to completely suppress the virus from communities until a vaccine or effective treatments are available.

This approach, combining border closures with snap lockdowns and swift contact tracing, has been praised as one of the world’s most effective covid strategies – with total infections in the country around 30,000, with just over 900 deaths.

However, this has meant that Australians have experienced some of the world’s strictest lockdown measures, with Melbourne – where the Toole family reside – currently under their fifth state-wide lockdown, after already enduring months of economic shutdown and even night-time curfews.

With these strict measures, Australia has been relatively successful in curbing coronavirus infections and deaths across the country.

Yet 16 months after the decision to close the borders, just over 10% of Australia’s population have been fully vaccinated – meaning the country’s borders remain closed with no date offered for re-opening.

Vicky, a high school teacher working in Melbourne, said: “[The pandemic] has caused my mental health to plummet. The way I live my life at the moment is [like] Groundhog Day. I get up, go to work, come back, eat, do some work, go to bed and repeat.

"Thankfully both my parents are well but just not being able to see them through this pandemic has affected my mental health drastically.

"I have gone through feelings of grief, sadness, hopelessness and anger.”

She explained that her family are also suffering as a result of how she is feeling.

Vicky worked at De La Salle High School in Eccleston for 18 years, and said she would often become “incredibly homesick”even before the pandemic, yet always took comfort in the fact that she was only ever a 24-hour flight away from family back home.

However, observing Australia’s delayed and faltering vaccination programme, and with little power to change anything, her anguish has only accentuated as she sees no way out of this crisis.

Speaking about the government’s handling of the pandemic, she said: “[Prime Minister Scott] Morrison has continually moved the goal posts.

"Borders were supposedly opening in December 2021, now he is saying June 2022 or beyond, but he can’t promise anything even if the majority have been vaccinated.”

“There is a general election next year so my guess is he will keep the borders closed until [then] as a poll indicated that 70% of people agree with border closures.”

Australia’s border closures and zero covid policy has been broadly popular across the nation, although criticism has been rising of the sustainability of the approach with a limited number of vaccinations.

In addition to their slow vaccination programme – blamed on supply and logistical issues – more than 34,000 Australians still remain stranded overseas, and Vicky says there are countless stories of people in a similar situation to her.

Exemptions to leave the country are frequently denied by the Australian Border Force, and international flights – mainly for citizens returning home – remain very limited.

Vicky explains she knows of families unable to see their children or grandchildren for well over a year, with one family deciding to permanently return to the UK – forced to travel on a containership after being refused four requests for exemption.

To make matters worse, she says there has been little compassion or understanding from the government or other Australian citizens for the struggles facing ex-pats, with many told to “stop complaining” or to “count themselves lucky that they are in a country that is free from Covid”.

Compared with rates across the UK and Europe, coronavirus cases remain comparatively low in Australia, with an average of 113 daily cases reported in the week leading up to July 18.

Nevertheless, Australia still remains in stage one – suppressing community transmission – of their four stage Covid exit strategy, with no guarantees to when this will end, or when the nation will move into the second stage.

Vicky, who is supporting her son through his exams and final year of school, said: “If [Scott Morrison] could give me a definite timeline as to when borders would re-open, it would be easier to cope.”

Looking at how other countries have managed the pandemic in recent months, she believes allowing fully vaccinated people to enter and leave the country, and quarantining at home on return, would be a huge step forward.

Changing legislation to acknowledge parents as immediate family and allow them conditional entry, would also come as a great relief to those isolated and struggling.

Back in 2017, the plan for the Toole family was to stay in Australia for five years and decide from there whether to return to the UK or stay and apply for citizenship.

However, after this immensely difficult period, Vicky said she has “no intention of becoming a citizen or staying in this country for any longer than is necessary.”

“I will be returning to St Helens. If I could, I would come home tomorrow.”