I dunno about your neighbourhood, but there’s barely a whisper of applause at 8PM around mine these days, which is a far cry from the vuvuzelas, pot banging, and hollering of a few months back.

Near on 130 days of lockdown, and the people are tired.

Whilst our lockdown regulations are slowly easing, the same cannot be said for the state of Victoria, with a state of disaster declared yesterday evening.

More from VICE:

Four weeks into what was supposed to be a six-week lockdown, Premier Daniel Andrews announced that he was upgrading Melbourne’s “stage three” coronavirus restrictions to an unprecedented “stage four”, resetting the clock and extending the city’s stay-at-home orders until at least September 13th.

In the interim, residents will be allowed to leave their houses only once a day for essential supplies, once a day for an hour of exercise, and exclusively between the hours of 5AM and 8PM, at which point a curfew is enforced.

Welcome, Victoria – I think you’ll find South Africans can relate, except for the fact that Australians can still buy alcohol and tobacco products.

In response, residents of Melbourne, the state’s largest city, are planning a group scream on Friday, August 7, at 7PM, organised via Facebook.

The event is simply titled “Stand on your front porch and scream”, with the following description:

Covid’s shit. Every1s a bit sad. Just stand on ur porch and scream until u feel a bit better. Let’s all unite in our shared depression.

Clearly, this has struck a nerve, and at the time of writing there more than 10 000 confirmed participants, and more than 30 000 listed as ‘interested’.

How very Capetonian of them. They couldn’t even commit to an event that takes place at home.

Some of the recent responses on the event:

Harmonised screams, pup involvement, and a backing track are all still on the table.

More from the event’s  host, Tessethia Von Tessle Roberts:

“Feel like this pandemic is a bit arse? Yea same. Help urself feel a bit better about the impending collapse of society and ur growing helplessness and just yell about it.”

When pressed further, Roberts said the scream was not limited to Melbourne only, and welcomed participants from other areas:

Go on, take your vocal cords for a stretch.

Anybody in Cape Town fancy a good scream at 7PM on Friday? You start, and we’ll join in.

[source:vice]