COVID-19
March 29, 2020
By NZB3
Lately everything I do seems to explode and burn down the moment I turn my back on it. The walls are coming down, sometimes with moments to spare. It’s like some movie cliche where the the good guys casually stride away without looking at the explosion happening in the place they stood moments before. Let me see if I can remember.
Three weeks ago I was to fly to Australia but decided not to; Had I done so a 2-week unpaid self-isolation rule would have applied. The day I was to return early last week the boarder was shut down which prompted uncertainty and chaos narrowly avoided!
I crossed Cook Straight on the ferry to Wellington last week¹. Just as I’d set my plans not to return the same way the service was shut down! Just as I abandoned the wavering rental car deal I’d made to fly back south instead that deal fell through so fortunately I did not depend upon it.
The following day, up in Auckland, I went for a swim at Glenfield Pool. Two days later all the pools shut down.
Next day, Thursday 19th, I spent the evening at the new Massey Library (it was games night.) The following day all the libraries were shut down too.
Getting out of Auckland last Sunday 22nd, I was able to pay cash for the bus from Papatoetoe to the airport just one day before the service became cashless. Even as a casual user, I’d have had to bend my brain around their HOP card system which would have done my head in.
The next day after I’d arrived back in Christchurch it became a requirement to carry a passport in order to fly nationally! Of course I never took that to Auckland with me. Chaos at the airport and incredible prices for fares then ensued like a burning building where I had just been standing!
Panic buying kicked in again as a “Level 4” go-home-stay-home order was issued to the nation. The day before I had done a big shopping trip at Rangiora Pak’n Save, neatly avoiding that chaos. Likewise, I managed to do the same at Lincoln Road Pak’n Save only days before just as that biggest (still?) and busiest shop went up in flames. A day after I got just what I needed from The Warehouse, suspecting it would have to close, it was closed.
Home at last, my Trade Me deals were squared away when only a day or so later they shut that down too. Just as I was closing the door behind me the whole thing came down and funds were frozen!
Most of all, I have now been living in my new home a little over one month. I’ve managed to get out of a sprawling burb of West Auckland and into the clear open and more sparse spaces of the West Coast. Fears of pandemic exposure are less here. Especially, fears of crazy people and crime and panic and gigantic clusterings for food and resources are less here. I made it out just in time, once again, just before the walls came tumbling down.
That’s just me. One lucky guy who remembered to say ‘White Rabbits’ at on the first of this month. It tells a good part of the story of what’s been going on in New Zealand lately. The politicians and media will tell you it’s a response to a pandemic, to COVID-19. However, that’s to take no responsibility. The Lock Down is a political decision, the crater where our society and economy used to be is something politicians have done to us under the pretence of crisis. I’m going to do my best to keep being lucky because I don’t think those politicians have finished pitching bowling balls at my head or yours just yet!
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1 Visiting Havelock on the way
Image ref. Wolverine walking casually away from an explosion; X–Men Origins: Wolverine (2009); Youtube
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