It's a shame rugby union is not the preferred code of footy in Victoria as the Bledisloe Cup match may have offered a slight distraction from a another dump of "hang tight, we're all in this together" news.
Then again, as much as the Wallabies' draw against the All Blacks, however brave and unexpected in Wellington this afternoon, was an encouraging sign, it doesn't mean Australia's 19-year streak of defeat at the Kiwis' hands will be over any time soon either.
And so it was all a bit same-same for Victorians today, too.
They learnt of a multitude of incremental changes to COVID restrictions, but none were likely to overtly please the masses.
In a nutshell: Victoria's state of emergency and state of disaster have been extended to 11.59pm on November 8; close contacts who refuse a COVID-19 test in Victoria will spend 21 days in quarantine and businesses will need to be even more vigilant about where their customers are from.
These new measures were announced after the state reported one more death and 12 new cases on Sunday, ending a three-day stretch without a fatality.
Today Western Australia recorded two new cases of COVID-19 but it also celebrated six months without community spread; Queensland had no new cases; and NSW racked up a handful of new infections, prompting NSW Health to issued alerts for shoppers at five businesses in Sydney's south-west.
In the US, White House physician Sean Conley said President Donald Trump took a COVID-19 test on Saturday which showed that he is no longer a "transmission risk to others."
The White House had no immediate comment on whether Conley's statement indicated the president had tested negative for the coronavirus.
All the same Mr Trump spoke from a White House balcony, where he stood alone, sans mask, on Saturday afternoon - his first public event since being diagnosed with the COVID-19.
India's confirmed coronavirus tally has nudged past the seven million mark after another 74,000-plus diagnoses were made in the past 24 hours.
Due to the nation's population density and socioeconomic challenges, India is expected to become the pandemic's worst-hit country in coming weeks.
And while we're overseas, the news isn't sparkling in either France or the UK where 26,000 and 15,000 new infections were respectively recorded on Saturday.
Meanwhile, take a moment this week to seek out some information on National Carers' Week - better still, why not shower a carer with a not-so-random act of kindness?
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