It's been an unnerving week for the residents of the Border and North East.
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Our long run of keeping COVID out of our communities has come to an end, with cases at Albury, Wodonga and Wangaratta.
The earthquake that gave us a shake but thankfully did little damage on Wednesday was almost a welcome distraction in that it gave us something else to talk about for a day. There's nothing quite like an act of nature to make us realise how powerless we are.
But the distraction didn't last long, with news of corona coming to our communities.
It feels like we have been saying for such a long time now that there is light at the end of the tunnel, but gee it feels like a long tunnel. And now, 18 months into this pandemic, the reality is the worst of it may well lay ahead yet for our communities.
We have been lucky, for sure. But it's not all down to luck. You can't be lucky for that long, and so credit must go to our communities for doing the right thing, so consistently.
The large numbers of people who turned out on Saturday for testing in Wodonga after information on exposure sites was released to the public is just one more example of us doing the right thing. Residents lined up for hours to get tested.
And now we wait, and hope that this time, there's at least a small dose of luck on our side. It feels like we deserve some, a reward for good behaviour.
And of course, get vaccinated. It's the only real weapon in our arsenal against a Delta variant that seems to laugh in the face of lockdowns. Vaccination is the only way we are ever going to get to the end of this very long and dark tunnel.