NZ Victims of Stockholm Syndrome

The traffic light system starts this week and the only thing we can really be sure of is that there are three different colours, Red, Orange and Green, but what they mean is not at all certain. If past performance is a guide, I predict that in a couple of months there will be a Red step 3 [insert name of new variant], that will allow hugging of up to three people not in your bubble.

You may laugh, but that is what happened under the alert level system that was first introduced, with an assurance that each level had a predetermined criteria. We now know that is not how it works at all. Firstly that would not offer enough opportunities for the Prime Minister to make announcements about an impending announcement of updated criteria and steps within the levels. It also would allow a change in levels to suit circumstances that have nothing to do with public health, perhaps a planned wedding for example.

Lockdowns are not costless and yet those that die prematurely from late cancer diagnosis or delayed treatment will not be easily attributed to lockdowns for some time to come, but they are there nonetheless.

Whether intentional or not, we have all become victims of Stockholm syndrome where we greet with delight a minor relaxation in the strict rules we have to abide by with gratitude and realise how lucky we are to have such a benevolent leader. While I only stuck with the daily 1pm sermons for a week, others still tune in examining the daily case numbers with an experienced eye and musing on what the R factor might be.

We are not alone in our madness unfortunately, there is a private school in the UK that requires students with a mask exemption to wear a yellow badge. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions.

I am fully vaccinated, that is I have had two doses, and that was my choice. I believe in freedom of choice and should others choose not to get vaccinated, they should be free to do so. It seems bizarre to me that the unvaccinated face unreasonable restrictions, logically they should have more to fear from the vaccinated than the other way around. In fact a just published study in the Lancet shows that the viral load is similar in both the vaccinated and unvaccinated who are infected. There is no doubt that the vaccines are effective, we are much less likely to get infected in the first place and if we do, it will be milder, it will become a disease of the unvaccinated.

New variants such as the latest Omicron will continue to evolve, like the delta variant it appears at this early stage that each new strain is a little less dangerous which is encouraging. You wouldn’t of course know this from the media who breathlessly report each new development in the hope of maintaining their relevance in a world dominated by social media.

George Orwell if he were alive today would be disappointed that we so readily accepted a world with striking similarities to that which he outlined in the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’.