I'm not suggesting we forgive, much less that we forget. I'm suggesting we don't act in anger.
This pandemic has been hard on everyone and your anger is valid - I'm not saying you shouldn't feel it. Going to the gym after a Covid test is a stupid thing to do. But we don't know what we don't know.
What we do know is that punishment very rarely leads to compliance. Studies show this but you don't even need any studies - you just have to have raised children or even have been one yourself to know this.
Getting punished is never the way to convince someone that they should play by the rules next time. It just sends a message to everyone that, if they break the rules, they better hide it really well or there'll be consequences.
Is that what you want? People lying about where they've been and who they've seen, keeping information from contact tracers?
If your anger directly causes someone from omitting information from contact tracers, it doesn't matter how many QR codes you scan, you're still actively harming the team of 5 million too - the very thing you are angry at them for doing.
You want them to do the right thing - so don't scare them into lying about when they haven't.
Recognise your privilege when judging others
Perhaps it's because I remember, as a young girl, seeing my mum go to work while sick because she was a supermarket checkout operator who kept being told that if she didn't want her job, "there were plenty of people who did". At the time, the worst thing she could have spread would have been a few seasonal colds but even if the consequences had been worse, I'm not sure she would have felt she had much choice, if the alternative was not being able to feed her children.
My reality is different and every day I recognise my privilege - privilege of being able to work from home, privilege of being able to keep my daughter home from school at every sniffle. My reality is better than that of many other Kiwis. What a lot of people are failing to do is recognise that their judgment of others is deeply clouded by their own privilege.
"Why didn't they isolate?" Maybe it's because they're idiots, sure, but that's not the only possibility. Maybe they didn't know they had to or - more importantly - maybe they didn't feel like they could.
It's so easy to get angry at these people. But we'd be much more justified directing our anger towards the systems that made the KFC and the Kmart worker feel like they couldn't stay home and miss work.
And who here hasn't gone somewhere and forgotten to scan? Who hasn't given someone a handshake that should have been an elbow bump? Who doesn't "forget" their mask when they should be wearing one? Who hasn't run off to a bach outside of Auckland after a lockdown announcement? We know a good few who have.
We've all had to learn to live with this pandemic, from scratch, a year or so ago. Before that, none of these rules existed. So you can adapt better and faster than others - that's awesome for you and I really appreciate your effort. But I also appreciate the effort of those who try and fail because, unlike conspiracy theorists still trying to convince people the pandemic is no big deal, at least these people are on your team, working towards the same goal - even if they failed at it.
Instead of getting angry, how about we focus our efforts on solidifying the systems that keep us out of this kind of trouble? Ensure the message is clear and consistent (we know, from multiple reports, it's not), ensure it's getting to the people who need it, ensure they feel like they can isolate when that's what's required.
It's also important to keep some perspective. Have a browse through the international news section, chat to someone in a different country and see how they're doing. You'll see how far we've come. How, overall, we're all doing a pretty great job of this whole thing.
I talk to my family overseas every day. They've been in some crappy form of lockdown for a year now. People in my home country describe life in New Zealand as something that looks "straight out of science fiction" as they see photos of Kiwi crowds at rugby games and music festivals. I watched a famous comedian and TV show host back home nearly burst into tears when he video-called a Portuguese immigrant in Auckland during an Instagram live. He saw people walking past her on the Viaduct, holding hands, and he had a physical reaction to the fact he hadn't seen that in so long. The world is suffering. We're not doing too bad.
I know people are getting sick of the "be kind" motto but it has worked so far.
We got to this place because we stayed united. Pitchforks aren't going to get us out of this.
That's a job for vaccines.
