The front page of Monday's The Border Mail carried a simple, yet powerful, message.
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It was a thank you to the many thousands of healthcare workers on the front line of our country's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Among the faces on our front page was Alice Driver, who manages the COVID-19 drive-through swabbing clinic in Wodonga.
Ms Bridges said as a region, and a country, "we've been really lucky" which is no doubt true to an extent but to put it purely down to luck would be to sell short the efforts of our health workers and political leaders.
Comparative to other countries, Australia acted swiftly with quarantine measures and we're now seeing the benefit of that, although we must not become complacent.
"Until they grounded the planes on March 16 ... I felt the steam train was definitely headed our way," Ms Bridges said.
"I felt we were going to be another Italy or New York and I feel there is still a calm before the storm."
Nationally, more than 17,000 nurses have rushed to sign up for online courses to enable them to work in intensive care units, and 3000 more have moved to re-register in the workforce as part of the response to coronavirus.
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That these people are fronting up to work in what could well turn out to be extremely difficult and dangerous environments speaks volumes to a profession that is often founded on courage and belief in doing what's right.
Speaking to Australian Community Media recently, chief nursing and midwifery officer Allison McMillan had a simple message for all Australians: "support our medical professionals through empathy".
Understand how difficult their jobs are, respect the work they are doing, and know that they are doing their best for us.
They're the ones we're counting on now.
And they, in turn, are counting on us to do the right thing.