Jo Raphael: Lockdown is worst-case scenario - but we've got this

Our team of five million can do this if we all play our part. Photo / Getty Images

COMMENT:

Last Tuesday was meant to be an early night.

I was half asleep when I was woken by a phone call from my brother who lives in West Auckland.

He'd asked if I'd seen the news.

Lockdown. Again. I felt sick.

Level 3, he said.

I was gutted, so was he.

It took a while to dawn on me that we were in two different alert levels.

The next day news broke that a woman who had travelled to Rotorua was infected with Covid-19.

She and her group visited several tourist attractions. Which ones? I had been at Skyline at the weekend. It's a pretty big Rotorua attraction.

Director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield confirmed on Wednesday the woman had been to Skyline. The dread set in.

Which day? Which times? I was there on Saturday night with 13 members of my family.

It took another four and a half hours to find out she was there Sunday and her visit was considered to be low-risk.

Nevertheless, I felt for the visitors and workers who were there at the same time. It's scary.

Scarier for Auckland, which now has another 10 days to wait and find out if it will remain in level 3 or move to another level.

We have been so lucky so far.

To face another lockdown is daunting but we have learnings from our previous lockdown and, hopefully, we can ride it out.

However, it all hinges on everyone doing their bit. Practising good hygiene, keeping our distance and logging where we've been so our movements can be contact-traced.

For me, now is the time to be grateful. Grateful we have had very few infections, (compared to some countries) we have a good contact tracing plan in place and we have a team of five million who have proved that we can do this.

Let's also keep supporting our local businesses doing it tough – safely.

Kia kaha.