"Such is life," said the Prime Minister with a shrug after revealing her own wedding was one of the first casualties of her decision to put the country into the red light setting because of Omicron.
The PM went on to say that her own wedding was at the lowerend of the scale of disappointments, given others had faced much worse plights under Covid-19.
Even if there had been a red-light plan for her wedding, the PM could not have gone ahead with it politically. Only the most bitter soul would begrudge Ardern her big day, but to do it at such a time would have had a hue of Nero fiddling while Rome burned.
Country-wide, major events are now being scrapped left, right and centre. Hospitality has to confront operating under much more limited circumstances again, little more than three weeks after Auckland reopened properly.
Many events had already been canned, simply because of the uncertainty around when Omicron would land.
The PM's philosophical shrug at this pre-wedding gift to her from Covid-19 was a bit reflective of the wider approach to Omnicron: an acceptance it would have its way and she would simply have to work around it.
As the Opposition was quick to point out, what happens now will be the test as to whether the Government had learned the lessons of Delta and was ready for Omicron.
There are differences. There will be no effort to try to nip Omicron in the bud, as there was initially with Delta. It didn't work with Delta, it won't with Omicron. That is more palatable now not only because of high vaccination rates, but because of low public tolerance for the measures that are needed to try to strangle an outbreak – harsh lockdowns.
The PM still cannot quite bring herself to say out loud that New Zealanders now have to live with Covid.
But the three-stage plan she set out makes that blatantly obvious. The details of that three-stage plan were due to be signed off by Cabinet on Tuesday, and announced on Wednesday.
Not for the first time, Covid-19 did not abide by the PM's timelines. She unveiled its bare bones on Sunday instead. They are effectively a staged progression of caving in to the inevitable.
Here we go again: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Dr Ashley Bloomfield announce community spread of Omicron, and the red light setting. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The three different levels of response depend on the spread of the virus and show the Government is hoping to be able to hold things in check for a period of time before hitting level 3 – which is effectively the "let it rip" level. That could be a matter of weeks.
On the bright side, such as it is, things may well now firm up around when the international borders can reopen and returning New Zealanders can do home isolation. That was on hold while the Government used MIQ as the last wall of defence to stop Omicron entering the community. It had always known that was a matter of time. But once it is widespread in New Zealand, there is little to no point in requiring people from overseas to do MIQ.
That will not be in the early days or weeks. While daily cases remain below 1000, the response will look a lot like it did under the first and Delta waves: a lot of effort will go into testing and contact tracing and trying to contain the spread of the virus that way. PCR testing – the nasal swabs - will be relied on.
Other forms of testing, such as rapid antigen tests, will start to come into play more – especially once case numbers rise and PCR testing cannot keep up.
But waiting so long to introduce widespread rapid antigen testing for workplaces will lead to the accusation it is trying to close the stable door after the horse has bolted.
The Government has long stood accused of dragging its heels on using saliva and rapid antigen tests and that could come to haunt it now.
Beyond the health impact, the biggest risk is disruption to workplaces. It is all well and good to allow businesses to keep operating – but not if most of their workers end up isolating or sick. Many workplaces will want to use rapid antigen tests to try to reduce the chances of Omicron disrupting business.
The flow-on from that, as the PM herself pointed out, was that it could disrupt critical supply chains to supermarkets and other essential services. Those, she said, would be the priority for rapid antigen testing which may now fall under a surveillance testing regime.
The last stage is the "let it rip" stage – albeit not by design. That is when there are up to 50,000 cases a day – the worst-case scenario the Government considered. That is when the claims the Government has made that it is ready and prepared will really be tested. Can ICU beds really scale up as quickly as claimed?
At one point, Ardern indicated the Government had considered whether it would be better to simply let it rip from the start to get it over and done with earlier. Eyes had been on the UK and Australia's runs with Omicron.
But the overall aim at least in the initial weeks is to try to buy a bit more time and hope people rush to get boosters. The next month is the critical time for that.
It is almost four months since the start of the Delta lockdowns and it was at that time that the vaccination programme first opened to the wider population and people flocked to get vaccinated. Most of those will be due for boosters in the next few weeks. That is the same period the PM expects it to take to move from less than 1000 cases a day to higher numbers.
