If there's one certainty we've got in these uncertain times it's the simple fact that we really don't know what's ahead.
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And that is not as confusing as it might at first appear.
The relief that enveloped Melbourne when the city's population finally stepped out of a hard lock-down a few months ago was more than just palpable.
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It was the next step down from euphoria, if that is even possible after such an exhausting ordeal.
Many expressed relief that this might have been the end of the truly tough times stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated need to do everything possible to stem the spread of this insidious disease.
In fact, there was certainly a feeling, albeit qualified with a sense of reality, that the worst might have been in the past.
But the events of the past couple of weeks in Melbourne have demonstrated what the majority of us probably believe.
And that is it doesn't take much of a bad break for the virus to slip the net and begin to threaten us all yet again.
What is equally clear is that the decision by the Andrews government on Friday to immediately impose a five-day, state-wide lock-down was the only choice available.
If your contact tracers cannot keep up with the spread of the latest outbreak of the virus, as is being borne out by the "hyper-infectious" UK strain, then that is what must be done.
It's a burden, but we have no other choice.
It had already been bad enough, for example, in Britain thanks to that nation's haphazard approach to COVID-19.
But the havoc being wreaked by this new strain in Britain is even a greater worry, for we in Australia could easily head down the same path.
As Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley has remarked, a third wave of the illness powered by the UK strain would be disastrous.
It is, Premier Daniel Andrews says, a virus that is now "faster, and smarter, and more infectious".
It is therefore clear that action to halt the virus must be equally hard, smart and fast.
It will be tough on the Border with our one community, but it's only five days.
This is our only choice.
