In the Southern District Health Board area, which is basically most of the lower South Island below about Mt Cook, we have had two people die supposedly as a result of contracting this virus. Yes, both old and both with comorbidities. The last person to be confirmed with the disease in the Southern area was a girl between 15 and 19 years old, way back on the 15th of April. There may have been a couple of other ‘might haves’ on the 17th of April, a young woman and a 1-year-old baby, but they were never tested!
The definition of being recovered is that ten days have lapsed since symptoms were first noticed, 48 hours without symptoms and a sign off from your doctor.
Apparently Southern has nine active cases in the area. Quite how this is still the case is beyond me. Maybe some people just still have a sniffle or something and haven’t been cleared as recovered. In any case, there is nobody in hospital in the Southern region.
So we haven’t had a case for two and a half weeks, no one is in hospital, 300 tests on randoms in Queenstown recently found zero cases, and yet I still can’t go shopping with my housemate. Why is this?
Where I’m going with this is that I got told off yesterday. And I don’t like being told off, especially when the rule I am breaking is stupid.
Yesterday I went to my preferred supermarket with someone who is currently living with me, a flatmate if you like. As we went into the shop, there was a young lady guarding the place. She asked us if we were together. I replied ‘No’ and walked past her. The place wasn’t very busy and it was unlikely that there were more than two people in any aisle.
About halfway around we were again accosted about being together. Again they received a “No” and my mate was given the lecture about staying two metres away. He is a bit soft so did try to keep away from me, you know, in case the person he lives with might suddenly infect him!
So we finish the shop and start putting everything on the moving bench. Again we are accosted with the ‘Are you together’ question. This time I thought it might be interesting to see what might happen so I replied “Yes”. At this point we were basically abused and told that there is a rule about two people shopping together.
“Well the rule is stupid” said I, “we live together and pose no risk to each other.” I didn’t want to mention the dreaded ‘bubble’ word.
“Well that’s the rule, I don’t make the rules”, says the quite annoying woman behind the checkout. After a short discussion with her, including suggesting that I just leave everything there and leave (a suggestion she was happy with), my buddy went and stood in the naughty corner thereby forcing me to unload and reload all the food, thereby taking longer and theoretically increasing the risk to the cashier anyway.
At the end my mate and I had to swap places in the naughty corner as it was his turn to pay for this lot of shopping. I then asked the woman if the rules were there to protect her or me. She replied, “Well me I hope”. I suggested that it might be nice if they also took the safety of their clients just as seriously, since she was wearing the same rubber gloves that she had on when she served the previous customer, so theoretically could have just passed the virus from them to me, and that unless she was to change them very quickly she would also risk passing the virus on to the next customer in line.
This was met with stony silence as she struggled to process the logic, and rather than changing into a fresh set of gloves, asked me if I would like to talk with the manager!
So no, I didn’t want to talk to the manager, but maybe I should have. Next time I shop there I may just have to buy a glass bottle of red cordial, and emulate RantyKiwi and his excessively slippery hands. But anyway, what can we do when stupid rules are in place?
Remember the two metre rule was instituted to help avoid what was deemed by the health boffins as ‘Close Contact’. If you hadn’t spent more than fifteen minutes within two metres of someone, you were deemed to have not been in ‘close contact’ and were at that time being denied the opportunity to be tested for Covid-19.
Clearly some stores are now making up their own rules based on the misconception that anything within two metres is bad, even for just a second. Theoretically, walking past someone in a supermarket aisle would make you offside. I get that the two person rule is there to minimise potential contact from an infected person, but feel free to have another read of my first paragraph if you need to.
We have seen this idiotic logic from a certain Green MP, Ms Julie-Anne Genter, when she decided that NZ taxpayers have plenty of extra cash for pop-up footpaths and cycle lanes, even though people walking past each other on a footpath could never be classed as close contact under the MoH rules.
After putting the shopping away and having a calming cup of tea, I decided that maybe I could go and do a dump run of all the rubbish I have managed to get into my trailer in the last five weeks of purgatory. A quick check online showed me the folly of my thinking. The rules were set out clearly for me on their webpage. I would have to book a time online, provide a rego number, not be late, was not allowed a helper, couldn’t get near the cashier, would get sent away if not in the same car etc etc.
Well bugger that, it’s just not worth the hassle so the trailer is still full. Same with the trip I need to make to the hardware store, it just isn’t worth the grief simply to get a couple of bags of instant concrete.
So we need to get this country up and running again. Shops and businesses need to stop making silly rules, and if the silly rules are being directed from the government Ministry of Health, then they need to start fighting back.
Nothing is going to change until people start making an uproar. It’s happening in the States and over in Australia where people are giving the finger to the ignorant lawmakers and starting to go about their business.
It’s really not good enough to just say ‘oh well, it’s only for another week’, because it won’t be. The first discussion will be on May 11th. That means no Level 2 before Thursday the 14th at the earliest, and I for one believe they will just wriggle it out until the next Monday, the 18th.
That’s another two weeks of stupid rules, living in fear, having to think up lies about why you’re out and about in case the black leather vested or blue shirted gang members stop you, and isolation from your loved ones and mates.
Enough is enough, come on businesses, it’s time to take on this New World Order, it’s time to call your MPs, especially the Labour and NZ First ones (it’s pointless talking to the Melons).
It is time to demand that they stop controlling you and your customers, just because a handful of people might have a bit of a temperature.
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