In 1997 I made my first trip to the US. Upon going through Immigration, a largish and somewhat surly black female border control officer told me:

“You can not stay here on this visa. You have to go home, you know that right?”

Being a relatively young solo traveller, I didn’t yet know that border control is the one place you just smile and nod no matter what. Instead I responded with a rather jet-lagged and kinda lippy:

“Why the hell would I want to say here? I’m Australian.”

One very filthy look, and one super aggressively stamped passport, later – I was processed and allowed to enter the country.

In March this year, Trump touted there would be an estimated 60,000 US deaths from Covid-19 by August, however this number has been exceeded in APRIL already. The new projection Trump is embracing shows 74,000 deaths by August now… but the way things are going, they will hit that (and then some) before mid-May, not months from now in August. 😢

At this time, in the middle of this pandemic* I’ve never been so glad to be Australian and my heart is just breaking for our American friends.

* even with our stupid and hypocritical PM insisting that schools should reopen without sufficient evidence that there are no long term detrimental health impacts for children exposed to coronavirus.