Yet again we have the insufferable sight of Dear Leader performing her amateur theatrics at the podium of misinformation! Her presentation consists of an entree reminding us we are a team of five million, a main course consisting of a good serving of fear, while dessert is a sweetener of be kind to each other. It’s the sort of message that would not be out of place in the Great Hall of China or Pyongyang HQ. It might be timely to remind Dear Leader we are not something akin to her adoring lackeys and we don’t appreciate being spoken to in a manner that reminds us of when we were in nappies.
I have now read a number of articles from overseas newspapers none of which are complimentary to this country or how we are handling Covid. These are from countries that have adopted a sense of normality and decided Covid cannot be eliminated. They are now adopting strategies whereby they can live with it. They are rightfully critical of our countrywide lockdown for so few cases. These countries are moving on and we are not. It is true we have been the last cab off the rank from the start and ever since. This is given as a convenient excuse for the current lockdown. Elimination is a fantasy.
Is it a valid excuse? Israel, which is among the leading nations for vaccinations, is entering a fourth round of Covid infections. They are now buying booster shots in the hope that will help the situation. What does this tell us? It tells us that no single vaccine fully prevents all the variant strains. This means we are even further behind the eight ball than we think. It also means that, even with a high vaccination rate, say 80 per cent, we will still have Covid in our midst. When we open the borders, as we will have to someday, even more so. Will we still be locking down? According to Stuart Nash, yes. Is this because the Government is still pursuing an elimination strategy? If so, then this country is in big trouble.
We urgently need to rejoin the rest of the world. It’s not like we are on anyone’s doorstep. We are a small isolated country. Shipping companies, as is already happening, will skip calling here in a heartbeat.
We are in danger of becoming a place that our trading partners will ignore because it’s too difficult and expensive to get goods in and out. The longer the borders are closed the more likely this will become our reality. We need to get the open for business sign out and move on.
Other countries and some States in America that didn’t have these severe lockdowns have been pretty much open for business all along. Florida is a good example. Cruise ships have resumed and are exempt from the on land Covid restrictions.
These things can be done but not here it seems. We have been turned into a team of a fearful five million. This is the team Dear Leader has full control over and rules accordingly. Do this, don’t do that, be kind, stay in your bubble and a whole lot of other socialist propaganda. We are well known for being a country of sheep and now the total has just risen by five million.
Dear Leader has put so much fear into the population she now has to tell people to only go to a testing site if they have symptoms or have been in contact with someone who has tested positive. These types of lockdowns can have other negative consequences. There are those in England who have been in lockdown for so long they now miss being with their family and don’t want to return to life as it was.
We have enough problems with mental health in this country as it is, and the road we are on will only add to the misery. If we have a few hundred cases of delta, that is a tiny percentage of the population. Five hundred plus people die of the normal ’flu each year in this country. Where is the lockdown for that?
We need some perspective on these matters. Businesses need to open and as much as possible life must get back to normal. In the rural area where I live it certainly looked like it was. On Sunday while walking I counted over 100 vehicles in half an hour. I also spent time in the garden and it was like that for most of the day.
If this is going to be the norm for the next God knows how long then God help us. It might suit Dear Leader and her Cabinet who have no understanding of economic matters but it sure as heck won’t do either the economy, people’s mental health or the country’s morale any good at all.
We are living on borrowed money and living on borrowed time. There has to be a better way and there is. There is plenty of evidence to show that those places that operated as normally as possible did no worse overall than those that had stringent lockdowns.
There is too much emphasis on case numbers. Deaths and hospitalisations are the numbers we should be focused on if we want to handle this in a way that causes the least economic pain and hardship. This, of course, would ruin the narrative Dear Leader wants to convey. That is to keep the fear factor alive and be able to speak to us as if we are three-year-olds.
A compliant media is of no help when it comes to bringing some rational discourse to the subject. The media will stay beholden to their paymaster, the government, but for how long will she retain the compliance of the masses?
Mike Hosking made the point that there was a high level of compliance last year mainly because we were dealing largely with the unknown. This time we are much more knowledgeable and Mike, like me, is getting the sense that there is a somewhat different view out in the community. This was echoed by an RNZ journalist who was attacked in the street by some anti-Covid protesters just prior to lockdown.
More rules and regulations are being introduced. Instead of freeing up we are going in the other direction. Frontline health workers such as nurses are now having their cars broken into. One was stolen. This type of anti-social behaviour will become more prevalent the longer we remain in this mode.
The reason we are in lockdown is due to the lack of mental aptitude shown by Dear Leader and her Cabinet who have proven to be abject failures at undertaking even the most basic of tasks. She might think what she is doing will give her the bounce in the polls she got last year but I think she might be disappointed.
We are more acquiescent than most people in the world but there will be a breaking point. Dear Leader’s handling of that will be anything but a pretty sight. She can stand at her pulpit of misinformation daily and spout all she likes about masks et cetera but she can’t mask over the fact that the blame for the situation the country now finds itself in sits firmly with her.
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