JASMINE Read has been part of countless video conferences, text message conversations and online group chats during the past seven weeks of lockdown, but said nothing compared to seeing friends in real life.
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The West Wallsend High student, 17, said she felt "hopeful and excited" on Tuesday to start making plans to form a three-person friends bubble, after the NSW government eased restrictions in time for the school holidays due to the state's strong vaccination rate.
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"I think it's a good idea," said Jasmine, who used to see friends every day at school, as well as at netball training on Tuesdays and games on Saturdays.
"It's a positive outcome after so many weeks of uncertainty and negative feelings that we can finally see our friends. In-person it's so much easier to emotionally connect.
"You message each other and they send you something or you have a joke, but it's not the same as if it were face to face."
Jasmine said this contact would boost young people's mental health, as well as year 12 students' motivation to study ahead of their Higher School Certificate written exams, which start on November 9.
"I feel like when I'm on my own it's easy for me to lose motivation or get sidetracked," she said.
"I don't associate home with school but my school friends I do associate with school, so it will be easier to stay on task and be motivated and help each other and guide each other to get the work done in preparation for our HSC.
"Because we're not really doing much else right now, if a student is feeling down now they can contact their bubble buddies and say 'Do you want to hang out now?'.
"It will be good that they have an escape from what they're feeling at home, to be able to connect with their friends now."
Under the new rule, people aged 18 and under are allowed to have two friends come to their house.
These two friends must always be the same, can't be a member of another social bubble and they must reside within five kilometres of each other or in the same local government area.
All people older than 18 years in all the households must be fully vaccinated and parents and carers dropping children off must not stay to interact with other parents or carers.
"It's okay for me because both my parents are fully vaccinated, but because vaccinations for us have not been so readily available as somewhere such as Sydney I feel it also can negatively impact people in that way - if their parents have not been able to access a vaccination, even though they're willing to be vaccinated," she said.
Jasmine was booked to receive her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Tuesday.
Pfizer said late on Monday AEST its vaccine works for children aged five to 11 and it would seek US authorisation for this group.
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