Are we ready to go back to normal? I hope so. I trust New Zealand’s health department hierarchy and Government have interpreted all the available Covid-19 data correctly and wisely. While dropping to our Level 2 may not be exactly back to normal, it is allowing a lot more individual freedom. More important, its allowing most businesses to return to some form of trading.
As this strange situation continues I watch the daily government briefings. I continue to appreciate hearing Jacinda sharing the facts with us. She has such an engaging manner. I often feel she is in our living room talking just to us.
I’ve been astonished by the journalists continued harping on at the Prime Minister about the restriction still being applied to funerals/tangis. Maintaining the rule of only ten people gathering to farewell a loved one seems sensible to me. But public pressure has caused an easing of that restriction. Now fifty people may attend a farewell. If life was back to normal, okay, but life under Level 2 is not normal. Personally I’m a little nervous. Can you imagine fifty people attending a funeral/tangi and each and every one of them – unless within their own bubble – maintaining a two metre distance? I’m afraid I can’t. Those funerals/tangis I have attended are highly emotional events. People join together to share their grief and support of each other. To suggest they would avoid shaking hands, hugging each other, performing a hongi, is incredible to me. My heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones recently. And I pray those attending these larger funerals will be safe. Imagine finding their gathering had caused an upsurge of Covid-19. And a possible return to higher level restrictions for the whole country. Devastating.
Is Monday Crunch Day?
What will Monday feel like? Most businesses will have had four days trading at Level 2. Monday is sure to ramp up as schools return. Will we see a return of the traffic congestion we have all but forgotten? Might the environmental gains the country has made without traffic be lost in one day? Will the song birds disappear from our gardens again? I pray not. But only time will tell as we head back to normal living.
