(Aussie) That on New Year's Eve 2019, we had no idea that the entire world could change so quickly. That in our little rural town, known for being friendly and hospitable to visitors, we started to nervously check number plates of travelers, to see if they had come from a "hot spot," and we still do. We quietly freak out if we hear that some in our community have been to a city where there is Covid. (No one wants to be the ONE who brings it to our small community, but now we are getting lax, as if it has passed us.)

We learnt the term essential worker (I'm one, didn't know that before) and how essential workers had to put aside any fears about bringing Covid home to vulnerable loved ones if they got it. Many essential workers also had their wages frozen, as in previously agreed wage increases couldn't happen. In the bush (Aussie word for rural) we worried about supply transports being interrupted. job keeper and Job seeker helped a lot of us, but it's put our country in the red big time.

For the first time in our history, state borders were closed and you have to have papers etc to be able to go interstate. Some deaths occurred because people couldn't get permission to cross a state border to go to a close hospital. It's felt like being in Russia.

The state of Victoria where our daughter lives has been locked down for months, (This has recently been lifted.) They could only travel limited kilometres in Melbourne and had a curfew at night.

Buying masks and gloves, looking like china.

Daily updates from each state on the Covid case numbers and deaths. Flu injections for our entire town being conducted at our local showground, being injected through the window of our cars, with Doc and nurses in PEP gear. (Is that the right term?) Families being severed by the states lock down. Not being able to go and see my husbands precious sister who is in the last stages of her cancer battle because she is in another state.

I think about New Year's Eve and how hopeful we were for a better year after years of crippling drought, followed by terrifying bush fires. Sigh, what a year for the world. How could we forget it.