And if there aren't enough people at the border, in our hospitals, managing MIQ, or doing contact tracing, I expect the Government to hire and train more.
Defending us from Covid, from director general of health Ashley Bloomfield down to the security guards at MIQ, is someone else's responsibility.
I've got my day job, and I have this column to say what I think about the Government's Covid response, but I'm not directly involved.
I'm not risking my nasal passages performing a job that's crucial to keeping people safe.
Yet we've got individuals in Tai Tokerau willing to give up their time to spot-check motorists for vaccination passports.
They're not police, they may or may not be health workers, they haven't got a specialised job description which we can label them. They're just going to be there because they're concerned about Covid getting into their communities.
That's a challenge to me. Standing on the side of the road during the holiday season is not something I feel like doing. Do I, therefore, not care enough? Am I too selfish? Probably.
Should I find some other way to help out more directly? Not likely.
I'm a busy person, I can tell myself. If I've got spare time, I want to get into the garden, watch movies, read books, go fishing - solitary pursuits.
If it were only the police at checkpoints, none of these thoughts would be going through my head, because that would be normal.
That's generally what we expect in a modern country. We all have our jobs we're paid to do. The politicians, health bureaucrats, nurses, and police do theirs. And the rest of us do whatever we do to pay the bills.
Iwi participation at checkpoints challenges all of that.
The National Party's new leader, Christopher Luxon, has called the law allowing iwi involvement under police jurisdiction "nuts".
It's different, it's a challenge to the "normal" way, but Luxon is too dismissive of people genuinely concerned about minimising the spread of Covid in their communities.
Maybe those of us challenged, like myself, by iwi involvement in checkpoints should reflect a little on the boundaries we erect around what roles we can and cannot do. Or are willing to do.
Rather than expressing our anger or impatience (or even indifference), we might try to understand where iwi are coming from.
It's about the Treaty of Waitangi and ideas of shared authority between the state and Māori, of course, but I think it goes beyond that.
When iwi work alongside the police at checkpoints this holiday season, they're reframing what it means to be a citizen and how we show care for our communities.
They're certainly not "thugs", as Act leader David Seymour would have it. That's not only insulting but lazy thinking.
Seymour's reaction is like an opposition team turning their back on the All Blacks or Black Ferns performing the haka.
Iwi involvement in checkpoints is a challenge that the rest of us should accept, even if we disagree.
Our modern way of allocating specialist roles to society's tasks is not the only way. Other ways have existed in the past, and in this land, where the roles performed by individuals are less demarcated and restricted. Where responsibilities to the community are more broadly shared.
I think that's something to think about seriously. Having to question your assumptions can be uncomfortable, however.
