Andrew Dickens: There is complacency in the community and Government

Andrew Dickens Afternoons

Well since I was on air last week things have devolved into a right royal mess.
Last Monday, the Prime Minister kept Auckland in Level 3 but threw the city a bone.
You're still locked down but you can have a little visit with another family or your yoga class.
Her mistake was fooling with the settings.
What Aucklanders heard was socialising is back on the menu boys. They heard Level 2 with restrictions. Not Level 3 with picnics. Give a city an inch, it'll take a mile and it did and lo and behold, case numbers are up and the spectre of Melbourne and Sydney is upon us.
Those cities got into a mess by going into loose lockdowns which don't work. The Government last week lost their bottle and made exactly the same mistake.
They've bowed to the pressure from business who are constantly advocating for opening up, meanwhile they've let down the population who believe that the suppression of Covid cases until we're as fully vaccinated as we can be is the best course for the country.
In trying to make everybody happier they've made everybody angrier.
Meanwhile, the spread of Covid into Waikato and Northland suddenly saw a surge in vaccinations. What worries me is not the hardcore vaccine hesitant, but the guys who only pull their finger out when the threat becomes real. Getting the jab in Raglan the day Covid arrives is 4 weeks too late.
This is New Zealand's great weakness. Too many people don't see the threat. They've not seen Covid up close. Elsewhere people leapt on the vaccine because they'd seen too many ambulances picking up their neighbours in the middle of the night. We never had that.
There is complacency in the community as well as in government.
The threat is hiding in plain sight. It's the swamping of our health system.
This current outbreak is causing a hospitalisation rate of 10%. With the numbers at their current level, we can absorb that. Just. Double them and we're in big trouble. We're on the verge of doubling them
Obviously, we need to learn to live with Covid. Surely, it's simple
Double the hospital beds and ICU and offer freedoms only once we're at 80% vaccinated, or more.
Everything else is just shuffling deckchairs on the Titanic.

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