I could hear the television news but didn't want to fully engage.

We usually love Melbourne's Channel 9 News.

We love its footy focus, insanely good crime reporting and of course the usual mix of politics and dodgy builder stories.

''Heartbreaking day for all of Australia,'' Canberra reporter Chris Uhlmann said.

"Damage to Victoria ricochets around the nation,'' he said.

Then, "Our coverage of Victoria's disastrous situation continues after this break,'' anchorman Peter Hitchener said...

Even the weather woman Maddie Slattery presented a segment on Mental Health Support information for "every Victorian".

It wouldn't be Channel 9, Melbourne without a Collingwood AFL story. This time club coach Nathan Buckley broke COVID quarantine to play a round of tennis with Alicia Molik.

Apparently Bucks didn't understand the nuances of lockdown, quarantine and hub.

''We wondered who the first Collingwood person to would be stuff up ... didn't expect it to be the coach,'' The Age's 'Caro' Caroline Wilson said, goading the club's chairman and fellow Channel 9-er Eddie McGuire.

Next the wife of Richmond club captain, Brooke Cotchin, apologised for leaving a footy hub and attending a day spa on the Gold Coast. She copped a $25k fine.

We learned that COVID had shut Ballarat's Craigs Hotel for only the second time in 150 years.

The old-fashioned, localising of national stories took on new meaning this week when Victoria's media responded to the declared state of disaster.

Almost every story in the one-hour bulletin was COVID-related. It was good old-fashioned, thorough coverage of a diabolical day in Victoria's history.

Midway through the news, our daughter called, at the same time my husband was doing a telehealth consult with our GP.

These are different times, aren't they?

The 9-News continued with footage of a brawl on a KLM flight when passengers refused to wear facemasks.

I returned my daughter's call.

She lives in Melbourne. She's been in lockdown since March.

Is your family in Victoria?

Your grandchildren, a new grandchild, elderly parents, student children, working children, unemployed children - are they in Melbourne?

How do you feel?

In March when we were all locked down together, we felt close and our stories were the same.

Now, I feel a kind of survivor-guilt kicking in as I enjoy our contrasting freedom of movement, here in Tasmania.

Simultaneously, there's a kind of "we'll be next'' fear that must be sinking into the collective gut when we witness first-hand how fast this virus moves through a community. Not just cruise ship passengers.

In February I had coffee with a friend.

He works with a lot of doctors and was privy to how bad COVID-19 was going to be.

He shook his head.

"You're wrong,'' he said, "it's not like an ordinary flu.''

A month later I was driving through empty streets on my way to my work at StGiles, an essential service.

Blinked. Next day I was working from home and finally, these last months, back in the office five days a week, working among friends and colleagues who have become used to my prattle (and me theirs).

Not so my daughter and her partner. They've been working from home since March. No prattle.

They're starting to get lonely.

They're starting to sound defeated. I can hear them trying and I see them smiling.

But this is life for us all - sooner or later - as COVID determines how we get to live and who, in fact, will die.

This week, as we sat glued around my colleague's laptop waiting for Peter Gutwein to announce our borders would stay closed, I commented that these might be our 'Churchill' days.

It's been decades since we have had to place so much trust in our politicians.

Then, it snowed.

Joy was restored during this winter of fluttering souls.