Melbourne Syndrome

The inability to contemplate or make plans for life after lockdown. Melbourne has been under one of the world's longest and harshest Covid-19 lockdowns since a second wave took hold in July 2020, caused by the Government's bungling of hotel quarantine and contact tracing. Since then, Melburnians have been detained in their homes and are only permitted to leave once per day to shop for essentials or to exercise for up to an hour. A curfew from 8pm to 5am also applies. The leader of the dystopian state, Daniel Andrews, appears at daily press conferences to create the impression of accountability and transparency, while managing to avoid providing any specific information to his 5 million captives about what his government has done to address the failures that caused the second wave. Secondary symptoms of the Melbourne Syndrome include the continual consumption of Covid-19 related media and an inability to complete other tasks until you have watched all 90 minutes of Mr Andrew's daily press conference.