I'm American living in Melbourne, Australia. We recently ended the world's longest and strictest lockdown, but now we're on day 33 with 0 new cases. The lockdown here was a lot stricter than anywhere in the US. We had a curfew from 8pm to 5am, allowed out for exercise for 1 hour a day, and could only leave the house for essentials during 5am - 8pm. I hated the curfew and the whole thing was incredibly difficult to endure. It's not easy to let someone else control your life with such severity, but I get it now.

The curfew was put in place because people were having parties/get togethers at night and the curfew hoped to stop community transmissions via larger gatherings in the home. I hated the curfew the most because it overstepped my level of comfortable boundaries with authority. So I get it. I understand how you're feeling.

The US really messed this up. Whilst we were in lockdown in Melbourne, there were free testing centers everywhere, contact tracing, isolating the potentially infected, and the government provided the resources needed. The US shutdowns are only to slow the surge in hospitals and that's about it.

It's just so cruel. The government failed Americans and it's not even providing financial support for small businesses. So many people are financially impacted and it's a disgrace. Ugh.

If you want some tips on how to cope, I'll send you a list of things we did over here in Melbourne to get through this hell.