Voice of Real Australia is a regular newsletter from ACM, which has journalists in every state and territory. Sign up here to get it by email, or here to forward it to a friend. Today's was written by Audience Engagement Producer Kayla Osborne.
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Many of us now have a core memory of lining up, either on foot or in the car, to get our noses and tonsils swabbed for COVID-19.
Not to mention the anxious wait for results afterwards.
It's been a long time since my last PCR test; but several times a week I drive past my local drive through testing clinic and up until last week I was lucky to see a car there.
I remember thinking, 'gee those nurses must be so bored'.
Well, they aren't bored anymore.
In the past week there have been lines up and down the street of cars full of people waiting to get tested.
It sent me right back to those early pandemic days.
And it's a stark reminder that this pandemic isn't over.
I don't think we are even close to using the phrase post-COVID and yet, I see it all over social media.
Just recently the Burnet Institute found that Australia's COVID-19 death rate, hospital visits and number of cases were the second highest in the world per million people.
In fact our small, little nation has recorded more than 12,300 deaths over the past three years - and that figure pairs with the 283,070 COVID-19 cases diagnosed in the last week too.
There is no doubt we are in the midst of an outbreak - a third wave, if you will.
But at my local shops those wearing masks are the odd ones out.
People who choose to mask up cop stares and a wide birth like they are the ones causing all this mess.
And while they might be sick (if you are sick, please stay home), they are doing more than the majority of us are to keep COVID-19 at bay.
Australians are big fans of 'she'll be right' and 'wait and see mate', in fact we have a global reputation for being 'chill'.
But is it leading to complacency about COVID-19?
I think so. The moment masking up wasn't a legal requirement, social distancing went out the window with it.
It's almost a false sense of security, especially now that most of us are vaccinated, that we can go back to the 'old normal'. That old sense of comfort.
However, the numbers tell us that we should still be taking precautions where we can. Live your life, of course. No one wants another lockdown.
But it seems the only way we can keep ourselves and our loved ones safe is to make sure we keep ourselves in the loop when it comes to COVID.
We aren't out of the woods yet.
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