Covid 19 Omicron outbreak: Luke Kirkness: Now is not the time to become complacent

OPINION:

Plenty of people have adopted a "she'll be right" attitude to Covid-19.

From my observations, fewer people are taking the threat of the virus, and the Omicron variant in particular, as seriously as they should.

I see fewer people scanning in when they go into businesses, and more people not properly social distancing.

That said, there are still plenty of people who remain risk-vigilant about Covid-19 and are setting a good example for others.

But I'm not going to lie, the whole process has become a bit of a bore for me and I have become very slack at following the rules.

Just three days of the past fortnight are complete in my Covid Tracer app and I know I'm not alone.

This all comes as New Zealand enters uncharted territory with the pandemic.

As mentioned in yesterday's editorial, the words "record-breaking" have become redundant when explaining the Omicron surge, with nearly each new daily case count topping the last.

One might think that because the borders are starting to open up for the first time since 2020 we might be nearing the end of the pandemic — and hopefully in some ways we are — but case numbers continue to soar and experts say there will be a lot of hospitalisations and deaths to come.

There were nearly 20,000 new community cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand yesterday, with 373 people in hospital, including nine in ICU.

Data shows there were 4764 active cases in the Bay of Plenty health district and 1483 in Lakes.

Never before have we seen local cases this high and all the while, people are taking unnecessary health risks.

I'm not sure whether people are becoming lazy, if they're just over the pandemic and its restrictions or if it's something else entirely — probably a combination of all things.

Now's not the time to be complacent when it comes to wearing masks, social distancing and QR scanning.

The Government has outlined the end of some mandates after the peak of Omicron, but that might not happen for a few weeks.

Light is at the end of the tunnel but the need to follow the rules has never been more important.