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Just over a week ago, my Sydney-based housemates and I settled in to our living room couch as was ritual for Gladys' 11am press conference when an exhausted NSW Premier announced that our state had recorded 239 cases in the previous 24 hours.
It was our highest number to date.
Of course, since then we've hit 319 as a daily "record", but at the time, I remember that 239 number feeling particularly biting.
Watch: Things you never say in 2021. Post continues below.
Another month of lockdown loomed ahead, and that naive optimism I'd been keeping up faded very fast.
I cycled through anger and denial. How was it possible? We were coming up on one month inside, but the cases just kept rising.
Dr Kerry Chant called for people over the age of 18 to consider getting the AstraZeneca vaccine and, although I'd managed to book an appointment for Pfizer at the very end of September, I defiantly told my housemates, through tears: "I'm getting AstraZeneca. I can't wait any longer."
Listen: On this episode of The Quicky, we talk vaccine passports. Post continues below.
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