Will lockdowns never end? No, it seems, by looking at the charts of the coerced jabbed, DHB by DHB. We were promised redemption by mass compliance with a vaccine that has unproven long term results. We were promised deliverance by statistical acquiescence but against moving targets. We are to be required to submit to booster shots. Where is the way out?
We are trapped in a nightmare that the PM smugly tells us is one of our own making. You can be free to have a haircut, she smirks, just as long as you do as you are told. She rubs her hands with glee as she announces that we are a divided people. That was her plan and how well she has achieved it. But if we don’t want that, it is entirely our choice – it is up to us to be jabbed or not. Except, of course, a coerced choice is not really a choice. It is a stealthy reality that has been drip-fed over short months. The PM is arrogance personified. “That is what it is. Yip. Yip.”
Jaspinda
A New Zealand leader that has mastered the art of lies and deception through media spin, usually involves long drawn out responses that have little content and nothing to do with the topic on hand. Usually involves many rapid arm movements, flashing teeth and tilty head action to aid in the distraction and spin.
Urban Dictionary Muppeth8r October 15 2020.
Urban Dictionary
So nothing has changed there then.
Post-war, we have not known such complete and utter despair. We were ill-equipped for this situation despite earlier sirens warning of viral air-raids. The stress and uncertainty are destroying lives, not just livelihoods. There is no equilibrium, no certainty, no vision for the future.
Christmas will be cancelled for more reasons than it being difficult for Santa to wedge his corpulent form down the chimneys of a battle-weary populace. The New Year is sure as hell not looking as though it will be a happy one. And while the rest of the world gets on and about its business, here we remain, stuck in an isolated little country at the bottom of the globe. Underground in Hobbiton.
And now we have our own version of boat people – those risking a sea voyage from Australia with the benefit of blue water quarantine en-route. Our citizens, denied entry to their own country, are taking matters into their own hands, or the capable seafaring hands of others, to return. To employment? Family? Who knows – they are prepared to take this risk, and it is their business. And so it is of any citizen.
The condemnation heaped on those who either dared to travel outside our borders for a ‘holiday’ or were living lives that are now no longer possible with cancelled visas, loss of employment, no income, and who are now stateless has been a revelation in what was once fondly referred to as God Zone. “Orf with their heads,” cry those happy to remain hobbits. “They did this to themselves.” Well, no, they didn’t.
The government has persisted with an MIQ system that is not a system but the Powerball of lotteries. It is far more difficult to win than Lotto. The odds against getting a place are huge. And this week came the disclosure that one detainee enjoyed an entire hotel to themselves. To those trapped in the parallel universe of seeking an MIQ allocation, every day is a chunk of life that has been taken from them.
Now I am not a sailor, nor would I be prepared to take the micro cruise ship option home, but I certainly sympathise with those few doing so. The opportunity cost for all of us now is enormous. The short term losses, the long term forfeitures, the seen and the unseen, the tangible and the intangible. We cannot hit “undo” or “backspace” and have our lives rewound.
I do not deny the reality of Covid-19. I am not a flat-earther. I am (reluctantly) double-vaxxed. Along with many thousands of others, I see the reality of a country now paralysed. Our future looks grim because of a series of monumental stuff-ups by our rulers. Business losses are mounting daily and suicides are a terrifying reality for some of the victims of this harsh new world – their loved ones left to struggle on without them.
We have lost twenty-eight people either with or of Covid-19. Twenty-eight. Eight people died on the roads in New Zealand this Labour Weekend. We did not have lockdowns or hysteria about these poor people and their grieving families.
Jobs, money, and stability are in short supply and the supply is getting shorter by the day. We cannot put a value on spending time with those we love. Opportunity is calculated in value, not money. And we can never again realise the worth of what we have lost – that is the personal opportunity cost.
We are reminded that life’s ultimate treasure comes from the love and connections we share with others.
It is time for the completely unrealistic 90% strike rate to be downgraded. It is time to open the country to its new reality and get on with a future with more hope and promise.
