So what happens now? Now that we know that a birthday party was held in a quarantine hotel, and the birthday child blew out the candles and pieces of cake were handed out to all party attendees? Now that we know a wedding was held in a quarantine hotel: not of quarantined persons, but of members of the public who presumably did not realise that it was a quarantine hotel? Now that our own Thelma and Louise have taken a road trip from Auckland to Wellington, getting lost and calling in friends to help them, giving them kisses and cuddles even though one of them had COVID symptoms, taking no toilet stops, food stops or fuel stops for 650 kilometres (if you seriously believe that, as Ashley Bloomfield says he does); now that we know, in spite of what we have been told, that people in quarantine have not been tested as required, and that people on Day 2 of quarantine have been mingling with people who are on Day 13… now that we know that people in the Auckland facilities have been bundled onto planes to take them to Christchurch because facilities in Auckland are becoming too crowded?
Our “Team of 5 Million” did all the work. Yes, we did. We were told to stay home, and we did. We were told not to go to work and we complied. We have lost jobs, incomes, businesses and loved ones, but we were told that it was all for the right reasons. We didn’t attend funerals, births, family events, dinners with friends, we didn’t hold the hands of dying relatives. We did what we were told, believing it was all for the greater good… even if that greater good was hard to understand on a personal level sometimes.
And then, when we had done it… when we had beaten the virus… all we had to do was rely on the government to play their part in stopping the virus from re-emerging in the country. The only way to do that was to control the borders, and to apply the rules to keep us all safe. It was a straightforward matter once the virus had been eliminated once and hopefully for all. A few spreadsheets here and there and the virus would have been controlled.
But we have all been saying for more than the last 2 years that this government is completely incompetent. They couldn’t build houses. They couldn’t reduce poverty. They couldn’t improve mental health. They promised all these things, but fell woefully short. Why on earth did we seriously think they could control the borders?
They didn’t.
One of the advantages we had before going into lockdown was that New Zealand was not in its winter flu season. Well, as the second wave starts to break, as it is about to do, we are now in the depths of winter; a winter that has already shown savage cold temperatures in some areas and generally foul weather in others.
Did no one in the Ministry of Health, or any other government department for that matter, think about that? That a second spike, if it happened, would be particularly harsh because we are now in our flu season? That we would be more vulnerable, if a second spike happened?
No. It seems that they didn’t. Not for one second.
When you have given up everything, thinking that the government has your back, and it turns out they they do not, and actually they never did, what happens then?
What happens now?
We cannot go back into lockdown. The economy is already tanking, and the effects are only just being felt. Things are going to get much worse in the economy. If we went back to lockdown, those businesses that have struggled during the last one but have survived will be gone. No business, no matter what Deborah Russell says, can survive two bouts of sustained periods without income.
The only good thing to come out of all this is that people are very angry with the government. Even Labour supporters that I talk to are furious. One I spoke to said that Jacinda must step down. Another said that we need an actual health minister, not a cardboard cut-out. Just about all of them are saying that, after all the efforts and sacrifices made, this government has demonstrated its incompetence one time too many. They had one job… and they couldn’t do it. Instead, Ashley Bloomfield is thrown to the wolves, and Jacinda has gone into hiding, as she always does when the going gets tough. Neve’s birthday is coming up, which will give her an opportunity to divert the attention of the public, but I’m not sure it will work this time. People want answers, and a two-year-old’s birthday party will not cut it.
Now for the really sad part. Simon Bridges was right. He was trying to tell the country that the government was failing to do its job, but nobody wanted to listen. He was described as ‘tone-deaf’, ‘playing politics’ or using the pandemic to score points. I feel sorrier for Simon Bridges now than at any other time, because he was successfully holding the government to account, which means he was doing his job and he was pilloried for it. It just shows the damage that a vacuous airhead and a sycophantic media can do. Simon Bridges was rolled by someone who doesn’t have the spine to do anything like the job that Bridges was doing. The whole thing makes me sick.
What now? Where do we go from here?
There is only one course available to us. We will have to go for herd immunity. That is what most of the rest of the world is either doing now or will end up doing eventually. As there is no vaccine on the horizon, and there won’t be for some time. We can’t just keep locking ourselves up, hoping for the best. We tried that. It didn’t work.
So now that we are facing the reality that herd immunity is our only option, as the government is incapable of keeping us safe, you might well ask – what was it all for? Why did we make huge sacrifices for the greater good? Why did we all self-isolate to keep ourselves and others safe? Why did we bother?
The losses and sacrifices made have been huge, and it was all for nothing. Those who bowed at the feet of Jacinda, and refused to face the reality that she is nothing but a lightweight running a team of incompetents, have blood on their hands. If we had closed the borders earlier and imposed proper border and quarantine controls, we would never have needed to go to Level 4. But it is too late now. We have burned through $20 billion for nothing, and no one is any safer than they were before.
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