Covid 19 coronavirus: Simon Wilson's pandemic diary - This is not health vs economy

People walking, exercising and maintaining social distance on Auckland's Takapuna beach on Sunday. Photo / Alex Burton

Who would have thought we'd be sitting at home waiting all day for the Prime Minister to make an announcement. Do a bit of dusting, pull a few weeds, watch the blackbirds digging worms in the backyard, so busy. Make a cup of tea. Make another cup of tea. This would be all right if it wasn't so anxious-making. Wait till 4pm.

I'd like to know how they did it, how they made the end-of-lockdown decision. Was there a parade of experts with PowerPoints, each presenting a different interpretation of the data, so Cabinet could hear the arguments before making its choice?

Or was there just one expert? In which case that would be Ashley Bloomfield, Director-General of Health. Are there ministers who want to take him home for dinner the way half the people on social media seems keen to do?

Or did they all just sit there, on Zoom and at home with their laptops fired up, not wearing any pants, and get stuck into each other?

"I hope you've read the briefing papers."

"Of course I've read the briefing papers."

"I don't believe you've read the briefing papers."

"Why is Winston still wearing a suit?"

The biggest problem – the hardest thing to manage and therefore the thing that is most like to undo all the best-laid plans – is not the illness itself. It's us.

Not the weaknesses in our testing and tracking protocols or problems with PPE, real as they have been, because there's a plan for those things and the evidence suggests it's the right plan. The problem is: what are we all going to do when the lockdown starts to lift?

• Covid19.govt.nz: The Government's official Covid-19 advisory website

Run naked through the streets singing "I'll say goodbye even though I'm blue"? Figuratively, if not literally, you have to think there'll be quite a bit of that.

We're getting fed up. Some people are desperate to get out. Some have just quietly gone and done it, going for drives, doing things they're not supposed to do. Gone fishing with Winston, so to speak.

It looks already like most of us have taken to living at the edge of the permissible. All those people on Takapuna Beach: despite the shock of seeing so many people in one place, the photos suggest they may be doing the physical distancing okay. But only just. What will happen now?

What do we even know? As we prepare for level 3, it seems we can be confident the virus doesn't spread on every sigh. "Went walking on Takapuna Beach" seems unlikely to turn up as a causal factor for anyone unwell with Covid-19.

"Went to the supermarket", also, has not been identified as a causal factor. More testing and more time might change that, but it hasn't happened yet.

It's such good news. Under level 4 we've had limited contact with each other and it seems to have worked.

But what also seems clear is that when clusters break out, they affect a lot of people, some of them badly. So the strategy has to be focused on stopping new clusters. And that, immediately, becomes problematic.

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Teachers don't want early childhood centres to open because it will be impossible to maintain physical distancing or keep surfaces clean. Schools are also problematic, although older kids tend to be better at not putting everything in their mouths. We all still have to stay home if we can.

But will we? With greater business activity there's also the risk that town centres will get busy, that the beach will too.

The best thing would be to stay safe at level 4 until it's safe to move quickly to level 2. To do, on the way out, what we did on the way in: not muck about with the uncertainties of level 3 any longer than is very strictly necessary. We have to hope the decision to go to level 3 for two weeks has been made with that clearly in mind.

The alternative, the American Way, you might call it, is magical thinking: back to work folks, in this country we're special.

This is not about health vs the economy. The question is: how do we shore up our population health so we can rebuild the economy? Which means making it resilient enough to withstand the ongoing presence of the virus, in our country and in the world.

We were committed to level 4. Will we remain committed to preventing its return? Another economic collapse, the disease more widespread and dangerous, all of us confused and upset. Who want that? Those pictures of protesting Americans – people who believe they know better than health authorities and their freedom to do anything is sacrosanct – are frightening.

For now we know it: no dancing in the streets just yet, or on the beaches. Still, it'll happen one day.