Small business closes doors during COVID-19. Source: Unsplash/Anastasiia Chepinska. The cost of the lockdown in Sydney and Melbourne has been estimated as high as $7 billion. That’s a huge sum. But the effect is not spread evenly. By this stage of the pandemic, weary small and medium business owners know the majority of the downside falls on them. We could start this story with a quote from the august financial minds at the Reserve Bank of Australia, but instead lets start with a social media post from the owner of struggling family-friendly pub The Victoria Hotel, in Melbourne. “We tried… We honestly tried…” wrote hotel owner Annette Murdaca-Soto on the pub’s facebook page last Friday.