After 102 days of no community transmission, Covid-19 is back in New Zealand. We kicked this once, let’s do it again.
You’re not going to get much sensible out of me today. On the way to work this morning, hubby’s cellphone got an emergency announcement from the government that Covid-19 cases have been discovered in the community in New Zealand and the whole country is going to a higher alert level.
After 102 days with no community spread.
A hundred and two days.
It was never going to stay out, but it was nice while it lasted.
Now is the time for me to be grateful.
I’m grateful New Zealand has a government that took the pandemic seriously from the start and believes scientific evidence.
I’m grateful Jacinda Ardern increased the intensity of lockdown restrictions now rather than taking a wait-and-see approach.
I’m grateful my livelihood doesn’t depend on me being able to physically go to work.
I’m grateful today was my last day in the office before a week of leave.
I’m grateful the masks I ordered were waiting in the letterbox when I got home.
I grateful for the past few months of freedom.
At 7:45am I went home.
We kicked this thing before. We can do it again. Come on New Zealand and our team of six million.
I am sad you are facing this again and jealous of your 102 days.
Some of us took it seriously, but not enough. My family has been in semi-lockdown since March, leaving the house only for doctor appointments, groceries and the like.
But because not everyone is, it continues to spread. We have 5.1M infected and 165k dead.I feel like I am playing a horrible, horrible video game.and I can’t take it off “hard” mode.
With these numbers and people’s inability to follow basic rules, they still want to reopen schools here. *shakes head* They started to in some states. Many have already had to close again.
I think “shakes head” pretty much covers it. I’ve been following the situation in the US with horror. Good luck to us all.
That’s not at all nice but then nothing about this virus is. I thought the problem was only in Christchurch though? If so, why put the whole country back in lockdown? On another topic, what hours do you work that you were going home at 7:45AM?
At the moment Auckland is the only place with confirmed cases, and they have a stricter lockdown than the rest of the country, but two of the cases travelled to a tourist hotspot while symptomatic so we’ll be terribly lucky if it’s not in the rest of the country as well.
At the moment I’m usually working 7am-12pm, so yes, I was at work less than an hour. 🙂 I wasn’t that I couldn’t have stayed because we’re allowed to go to work as long as we social distance, it just made more sense to work from home.
I’m sorry about the bad news. Do your best to stay safe and healthy.
Thanks. I’m sure I’ll be fine – I can get away with not leaving the house pretty much indefinitely. But I know most people aren’t so lucky.
The county I live in didn’t make masks mandatory until the beginning of this month, I think. They left it up to individual businesses, so of course that went super well. I can’t imagine what it would be like to live in a country where everyone is on the same page. It varies state by state, county by county, and still business to business, with some businesses enforcing the mandate and many not. I don’t care that people don’t care, but its crazy how unorganized the state is and how many people still won’t wear a mask. I kind of like wearing one. I don’t have to smile at people so much.
That sounds truly horrendous. Masks haven’t been a big thing in New Zealand to date, but they’re strongly recommended in Auckland right now, and likely to become mandatory (I hope) once people have had enough warning to get them.
Haha. I can appreciate the relief of not having to smile at people.
I am sorry indeed — it must be head-wrenching to have to go back into lockdown mode. This virus is truly dastardly if it can get past NZ’s defenses, and clearly there is no relaxing vigilance until vaccines or treatments or both or who knows. But what I wouldn’t give right now for a rational, coordinated, pro-active government like NZ’s. Sigh. I’m having to have a meeting with my Human Resources director to explain why I’ll need to work from home instead of going back to the school office . . .
Most of the country isn’t in full lockdown yet, just a higher level of vigilance where we have to social distance, not gather in groups of more than 100, and keep track of where we’ve been. But I wouldn’t be surprised if by the weekend we were back in full lockdown.
The virus really is dastardly. They’re exploring whether it could have come into the country in a refrigerated shipping container. If it did, that will be devastating for international trade and we’re all in huge trouble.
Good luck with your meeting!
What’s a bit boggling to me is how did it suddenly appear (seemingly out of nowhere) and infect four people in a household of seven? Hopefully the answers won’t be too hard to track down.
That’s the question everyone is asking right now…