The little woman running this country appears to be still obsessed with control. Even though there are countries that are happy to accept Kiwis with tourist dollars to spend, her advice is not to go. Stay and spend those dollars in your own backyard, she says. In one way encouraging domestic tourism is admirable, but travellers should be free to make up their own minds about where they go.
Jacinda seems to be clinging to some probably unrealistic hope that somehow this virus can be eliminated. The reality is we are probably going to have to learn to live with it and get on with our lives. Even if a vaccine is found chances are it won’t eliminate it completely. There is a vaccine for the annual winter flu but it doesn’t mean you will escape it altogether. The vaccine doesn’t cover all the various strands of the flu virus.
If Jacinda doesn’t want us leaving then she certainly won’t want anyone arriving other than returning Kiwi passport holders. How long does she intend this situation to last? Is she going to keep the borders closed until a vaccine is found? It seems she still fixated on COVID numbers and COVID numbers alone. These are her avenue for continued control. I haven’t heard any mention of the 400 to 500 Kiwis who will die from the ordinary flu this year. Maybe they don’t matter because it’s out of her control.
Apart from not being good for people’s psyche, this is highly damaging to the economy. Right from the start, we have seen a total disconnect from Jacinda between COVID on the one hand and the health of the economy on the other. She seems to have absolutely no comprehension of the damage being done to the economy as a result of her policy of control. There has been no attempt to try and institute policies that provide some balance to the problem.
Todd Muller wants the borders open to at least some degree as he has an appreciation that this is vital to the survival of many businesses. He realises the longer the current policy is in place the more damaging it will be economically. He also realises the complete hash this Government has made with their non-policing at the border. For all of Megan Woods’s continuous chatter it appears things are still not where they should be.
The time has well and truly come when we need to get on with life, as I believe most people are. We don’t need a control freak telling us we shouldn’t do this or it’s too dangerous to do that. It’s not just a question of low COVID numbers, it’s also a question of not ending up an economic basket case.
The problem is that’s not how the Marxist mindset works.
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