For Brittany Garbutt, the challenge of trying to run a business spanning Perth and Melbourne has been immense for the last two years.
But, after more than 700 days of border restrictions, travel into Western Australia will once again be free — at least for vaccinated people — from tomorrow.
More than 50,000 travellers have already flown into WA with exemptions since border rules were eased on February 5.
But once quarantine-free travel begins tomorrow, about 8,000 arrivals are expected to make their way through Perth Airport in two days alone.
Around a quarter are due to come from overseas, arriving on flights from Dubai, Singapore, Doha, Kuala Lumpur and Auckland.
The remaining travellers will jet in from across Australia on at least 40 flights over two days.
It marks a major turning point in WA's experience of the pandemic, and will surely bring relief to families, friends and businesses that have been kept apart by the state's hard border.
Reconnecting with staff
Ms Garbutt is behind a chain of bright pink Pretzel stores across Perth and Melbourne that have amassed more than 25,000 followers on Instagram.
It has been more than six months since she was last able to travel to Melbourne and meet her staff face-to-face, but now a trip east is just two weeks away.
"It's all very dry on Zoom, and at the end of the day there is nothing better than being able to physically be within your company, with your staff in-store and to see what's going on," she said.
Travelling in the last month was an option but, like many, she said the challenges of quarantining for a week proved too great.
With an expansion to Singapore put on hold by the inability to travel and general border uncertainty, Ms Garbutt said she felt much more confident this reopening would stick.
"When borders were opened and then closed it was about rewinding, trying to get us back to that no COVID [position].
"I just don't think it's possible now, and so I'm quite confident that when they open … it'll stay that way."
Some still in self-imposed lockdown
But it was a different story for disability advocate Natalia Hodgins who, in early February, was pleased the reopening had been delayed.
She has myalgic encephalomyelitis, a complex, multi-system disease that can bring on severe fatigue.
It also means Ms Hodgins is immunocompromised, placing her at significant risk if she contracts COVID.
But now, she is more concerned about the lack of support for immunocompromised people as case numbers rise.
"It makes it even more difficult when people try to minimise the situation by saying, 'everyone's going to get it' or 'we just have to learn to live with the virus'.
"None of us want to be in this situation and when you dismiss our efforts to protect ourselves. You're saying our lives don't matter."
Ms Hodgins said she was living in a self-imposed lockdown to try to limit her risk of infection.
She said easier access to rapid antigen tests, N95 masks and working from home for both people who were at risk, and their families and carers, should be considered as case numbers rose.
Ballooning outbreak a game-changer
The border opening was supposed to happen on February 5, the date Premier Mark McGowan said at the time was locked in "barring some unforeseen emergency or catastrophe which we can't predict".
Omicron delivered "a whole new ball game" and prompted the date to be indefinitely pushed back, as detailed in a late-night press conference on January 20.
But a turning point in WA's battle with the virus came about three weeks ago on Thursday, February 10 — the last time the state recorded more travel-related cases than local infections.
Within a week, travel cases went from accounting for about three-quarters of WA's daily totals to just 5 per cent.
It meant the greater threat was from the accelerating spread of cases locally, and the justification for keeping border restrictions was rapidly evaporating.
Mr McGowan acknowledged as much when he announced the new reopening date two weeks ago.
But Mr McGowan maintained waiting a little longer, until March 3, would help get WA's vaccination rates even higher.
Hope boosters will bring a different result
That is certainly now the case, with WA's booster dose rate sitting at 64 per cent yesterday.
A reopening on February 5 would have occurred with about half as many people protected by a third dose.
Mr McGowan said the delay had meant West Australians had avoided the imposition of even tougher restrictions.
"That's because we've got our third dose vaccination rate up and because we delayed the border reopening, which meant we didn't get that massive community spread," he said yesterday.
Delay avoided 'overrun' hospitals: AMA
Those factors have also saved WA's health system from being unable to cope with a surge in cases, according to Australian Medical Association WA president Mark Duncan-Smith.
"What it has done is allowed us to really nail down clinical guidelines, protocols, lines of communication, methods of transportation — effectively, to allow us to use the resources that we have got available more efficiently," he said.
A combination of restrictions and a higher booster dose rate would also help protect more people from ending up in hospital.
"We shouldn't see increased problems of not having enough equipment, enough staff, enough beds, and we should be able to handle the workload."
Dr Duncan-Smith said those difference made WA a "unique social experiment to the whole of the world" as the state prepared to fully reopen.
Only time will tell how that experiment will end, and whether WA will get the "soft landing" Mr McGowan has long hoped for.
