Wellington incoming...

This is the first post I'm typing and publishing 'as it happens'. So it may be quite 'raw'.

As a consequence of covid-19, Wellington will be at level 2 from 18h on Wednesday 23 June until 23h59 on Sunday 27 June.

One personal observation: even before the media conference at 13h today and still now, it has not been announced what covid-19 (variant) the traveller from Sydney has.

This is also another reason you do not have lax border and travel restrictions, as I have said before, for example, in 'Happy Valentine's Day New Zealand', https://holandt.blogspot.com/2021/02/happy-valentines-day-new-zealand-3.html. No, New Zealand's border and travel restrictions are not the strictest in the World. Yes, it has done well in keeping covid-19 out of the country and general population but it is not as stellar as media have reported in my opinion. Culture and psyche play a contributing factor and the majority of Kiwis don't have one to react to covid. Not only is it not in Kiwi culture to wear a mask, they were one of the countries who made it mandatory to wear masks the latest, in August 2020, depending on the alert level and circumstances.

I am not slamming NZ and only NZ. Taiwan has had a spike in cases and their response to covid-19 has been praised. But it has handled covid better than NZ. Remember lockdown in Auckland in February? Slip ups. That should never have happened. Viet Nam also had a good, possibly great, response, and it had a large spike too, this year.

There's a possibility covid-19 has travelled outside Wellington too, Tauranga has not had results back, negative or positive. If the Sydney traveller has a more infectious variant, then hold on to your emotions and, practically and concretely, your hats.

It is also Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. Covid anywhere is not good, or even in a city, but the capital? Not a good image. In New Zealand, they do seem to by and large, social distance. One does not have to, I can tell you that, but it is preferable. However, it will quickly become unenjoyable to stand 1 or 2 metres away from another human being.

Ironically but not surprisingly, around 12h40 New Zealand time today, https://covid19.govt.nz/ and https://www.stuff.co.nz/ were down, but were back online at 13h04 and 12h53 respectively - I would say it's down to the website not being capable of handling traffic, rather than updating it with the latest information. rnz.co.nz, however, never went down.

- A.M.

I have to add I love what Response Minister Chris Hipkins said yesterday (I read it yesterday, but am typing this today, on the 24th): "We can contact trace our way out of it", https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/445344/live-updates-on-sydney-covid-19-case-wellington-to-move-to-alert-level-2. I actually snorted.