I have friends "trapped" at their vacation home up the coast from Sydney. They bought it during COVID and when things were improving they went up to outfit the place... and got stuck when Sydney went back into lockdown. Which would be EXCELLENT... except it is winter there, and it's a summer getaway that doesn't even have heat. So they have kicked into renovating the place and updating it - with heat - while being locked down. Fortunately they work for an internet company and can work anywhere there is a connection...
Australian houses are not built for cold weather. At all. The residential construction industry just likes to pretend winter doesn't exist. I realise our winters don't compare to North America or northern Europe, but it's cosier inside a northern hemisphere house during a northern hemisphere winter than an Australian house during a southern winter (at least in the bottom half of the continent). On the other hand, the scenic northern NSW coast would be a great place to spend the pandemic.