For many Melburnians, the turn in the weather might be triggering.
For the past couple of years, if you felt the brisk winter air on your face it was usually during a brief daily outing that took you no further than a few kilometres from home.
But for the first time since COVID-19 arrived in Australia, Melburnians are heading into a winter where the government has made clear lockdowns aren't on the table.
This week, Health Minister Martin Foley told Victorians rising COVID-19 and flu infections were sending the state into a "really challenging winter", but the government wouldn't be reaching for harsh mandates to respond.
Instead, Mr Foley said the government would continue "devolving decision making and responsibility to workplaces, to communities and to individuals".
"As we have this long plateau of recovery it's now a different phase of the pandemic, and we now have to learn to live safely and alongside COVID," he said.
Many of us have tuned out of the COVID rollercoaster
Some of the data suggests COVID-19 isn't front of mind for a highly vaccinated Victorian population.
We're no longer as keen to stay across the latest COVID figures, for example.
There's not much fluctuation to follow in the reported cases, which have been hovering around 10,000 in the past week or so.
But authorities believe the official tally only represents around half of the actual infections in the community.
In hospitals and schools, thousands of new infections each day are causing rolling staff shortages.
The education department has been drawing on a pool of retired or trainee teachers to bolster staffing in schools, in a bid to prevent a mass return to remote learning.
Acting Chief Health Officer Ben Cowie said the heightened transmission of the two viruses was having a "significant impact" on the health system, which is already weary from the past two years.
"A large number of people in hospital and that's something nobody wants to see," Professor Cowie said.
But he said there were some promising signs of stability, with hospitalisations falling slightly in the past week.
"Our sense is that things will probably remain at around about this level and potentially… rise a bit through the end of June," he said.
Contributing to the anticipated rise is the establishment of the latest Omicron sub-variants, BA.4 and BA.5, in the Victorian community.
Early evidence suggests they're more able to evade immunity from vaccination and previous COVID-19 infection — but not more likely to cause severe disease.
Doherty Institute director and infectious diseases expert Sharon Lewin said those variants had only produced a "smaller uptick" during a recent wave in South Africa, but that was no reason to be complacent.
"There is a lot of COVID around and even if Omicron is milder in a vaccinated population, which it is, a very large number of cases still means we are at risk of increasing stress on our hospital system," Professor Lewin said.
A high caseload is claiming more Victorian lives
Vaccination will help reduce the risk of severe illness, but attempts to protect all Victorians with three doses of a vaccine appear to be stalling, with around 68 per cent of those aged over 16 covered.
It's a figure that's not budged much in the past couple of months, something Professor Lewin said needed to change.
Professor Cowie agreed, but also believed there could be another explanation for part of the delay.
"I think part of the reason why it might have paused a little bit is there's now a recommendation that people wait three months after they've had a COVID-19 infection before they get their next dose of vaccine," he said.
Sadly, Victoria continues to record a significant number of deaths.
Professor Cowie acknowledged many Victorians were distraught by the ongoing tragedy of lives lost to the pandemic.
"That individual and their loved ones and their family and their whole community around them are obviously impacted by that, and that's… very upsetting," he said.
Professor Cowie said the actual proportion of people who contracted COVID and went on to lose their life was continuing to fall.
"It's now of the order of much less than one person for every thousand infections," he said.
He said unvaccinated Victorians made up around a third of those deaths, despite only making up less than 5 per cent of the total population aged 12 and older.
Vulnerable Victorians urged to plan ahead on COVID-19 antivirals
Professor Cowie said one critical "new tool" available this winter to protect those most at risk from the virus was an array of subsidised antiviral treatments.
"They're hugely effective at keeping people out of hospital and from tragic loss of life," he said.
But there are two key things to know — the oral antivirals must be taken within a five-day window after the onset of symptoms, and figuring out which drug works for you can take some time.
Professor Lewin said now was the time for vulnerable people to see a doctor and set out a plan so they could access antivirals in time if they became infected.
"You might have really mild symptoms and think 'oh, it's not worth going to the doctor'," she said.
"But it's within that first five days that you have to take the drug to help make it work."
She said some of the drugs interacted with other medications, meaning a careful assessment was needed to determine which drug would be appropriate if a vulnerable person was infected.
"That's why going through that plan, with your GP or specialist is really, really important in advance," she said.
Masks remain effective barriers, but use is slipping
Throughout most of the pandemic, health authorities have consistently encouraged the use of masks as a simple, low-cost measure to drive down transmission and help the community survive the pandemic.
It's been mandatory on public transport since July 2020.
Since then, mask compliance on trains and trams has been highest during outbreaks where the threat of infection was front of mind, and lowest during the lulls between waves.
But now it seems, that link between heightened vigilance and widespread community transmission has weakened.
Compliance tumbled to an 18-month low last month, despite cases remaining high.
Professor Lewin, who has recently visited the United States, Singapore and South Korea, said the cultural differences between communities around mask use were "pretty striking".
In the Asian nations, she said it was rare to see people without masks even in settings where mandates had been eased.
"It's more about this community desire to make sure that everyone's protected," she said.
"It kind of makes life easy, when you don't have to go through that debate in your head, of 'should I, shouldn't I'. It's just removed from the internal dialogue and I think that kind of helps.
"I have to say in some parts of the United States, I didn't see any masks at all."
Both Professor Lewin and Professor Cowie encouraged Victorians to exercise good judgement on masks as the colder months bite.
"Essentially, it's a pretty simple thing to do that can protect you from potentially not just getting ill yourself, but passing on that infection to your loved ones when you're visiting them and it's the last thing anyone wants to do," Professor Cowie said.
Weighing all factors, the senior infectious diseases physician remains hopeful the same qualities that have kept the Victorian community together through the pandemic so far will sustain it in the difficult winter months ahead.
"We obviously will get through this," he said.
"We just all need to do our best to get through as well and as healthy as we can."
