Melbourne COVID situation at a glance

Here is me reporting again from Melbourne, a place where many of us have become familiar with since you have heard it so often in the news past few days. Well, even if you are not aware, here I am to give you a glance of the current situation. Long story short,

COVID-19 strikes back again!

Look at this chart below:

This is the chart records the latest cases from Australia and you will notice Victoria is the only state recording 66 cases in the last 24 hours. Well, Melbourne is actually located within Victoria 😓. Each day Victoria has about 60-75 cases and it has been going on like this for a few days now. I don't remember when exactly it started, but it probably happened around end of June (27 or 28th June) when we observed a spike in cases. We flattened out the curve and maintained quite a good trend throughout May as you can see in the graph below but on the last few days in June, you can notice a climb in cases:

How are we coping?

Well, life goes on but I have to admit that it is harder to switch back to the previous norm of staying at home. You can view from my last two posts that I have been staying at home since March when the movement restriction was in place. However, starting in June, we are allowed to go back office to work and restaurants are starting to open. If you are right now in Melbourne, I don't think you can notice a huge difference between now and pre-COVID. Almost every restaurant is opened now (though some do not allow dine-in due to the social distancing restriction), but it is still very crowded on the street.

Our first meal dining out on 3rd of June. In June, most restaurants started to open. Here in one of our favourite Japanese restaurants!😄

My second dining out was dim sum with friends. I don't think takeaway can EVER compare to dining out for dim sum!

I definitely do not mind if we decide to go back working from home again but honestly, our June routine to back to office to work for 2 days in a week has been working well for me so far! I will probably share some of the highlights in my stay-at-home period in another post. *I have scheduled to publish next Saturday since it is still in draft and will finalise by then. But I have this subscribe button on this blog, not sure whether it could work when I publish new post. Mind to try it out and let me know? Lol.*

I personally feel that working in office does help tremendously in my routine because I need to get ready to go out to work. To be honest, when we were staying-at-home from March to May, my sleep pattern was so disrupted as we often slept around 2 to 3am. Staying-at-home offered this kind of thought 'ahh it is work another day but at home' so I tend to be have less discipline in my routine. So, as much as I am fearing the possibility of contracting the virus and wishing to stay at home more, deep down I know I will be healthier if I opt for the 'going out to work' option.

This is my masking routine when I head out to office to work. Melbourne is now winter time with 7-14 degrees. I always feel so awkward wearing the mask on the street! It is not compulsory to wear masks in Melbourne and not many people are wearing them. But these few days this has started to change.

In office pantry eating my onigiri that I craved for so long!

But now that the cases start to pick up, we are back to our masking and sanitizing routine. I have to say I slack A LOT in June when all seem so good and well and virus seem to be going away very soon but now that thing takes a worse turn, we will have to be more cautious. We both have re-usable masks that we often wear when we are out and we will also bring a small handy hand sanitizer too.

Our reusable masks when we are out. Oh notice any difference between these two pictures? (Hint: glasses)

In all honesty, I will be lying to say I am not worried about the whole situation. It somehow feels like I got to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel but when I am almost there, the light disappears and now I am back to how I started 3 months ago. And we were so so close before in June when the movement restriction was lifted! I think I feel more frustrated than anxious, because you know there is a possibility that things can be back to normal but now we are moving further and further away. Also moving further away is my wish to travel back home to visit family and friends that I dearly miss.

Why this picture? Because I am supposed to be there in mid June 😢 We booked a trip to Queensland but unfortunately it has to be postponed since the border is still closed. Here is Tangalooma Island Resort which we are going for two nights actually - with whale watching, snorkelling, etc. Can you hear my heartbreaks sound? 💔

I do miss home too. Although Melbourne is home for me, my home in Malaysia is also as precious as what Melbourne means to me. I do appreciate if you keep us in your prayers. It was not an entirely pitch dark situation because I do thank God for a lot of things. For a start, it is a tough time for a lot of business and employees out there, and I am just grateful with the fact that even with the current situation, God provides and keeps us with our jobs. With that, I am truly thankful. But at the same time, I do want to lift up my prayers for this whole situation, for one day I pray that things can be and will be back to normal, as I continue to trust and hope in Him.

Things can be looking rather bleak now. But if you ask me how we are coping, I guess my answer will still be we are good. We are truly coping as best as we can and looking forward to the day that we can finally meet each other face-to-face, having a meal with no concerns of large gathering, planning another trip to Queensland or just somewhere and flying back home to see for myself once again the people that I love. Till that day comes, I know I will be looking back at this post and reminding myself for things that I can be grateful for and for the things that I learn throughout this season.

Till then, see you next post on Saturday and take care everyone!

~ With loves, Susan