Editorial: Back to Covid 19 lockdown with new outbreak

Mask use is a change to the rules this time. Photo / AP file

Opinion

Covid-19 has reared its ugly head in New Zealand again.

It may have been a case of when not if, but it will still have come as a blow to many - a collective dull sinking feeling in the pit of our stomachs.

We had just got used to the freedom of normality again and now it is lockdown Groundhog Day.

New Zealand was for a while on a dual path: Having an enviable run of success while watching developments that threatened it.

It meant two different messaging paths for the public.

On the one hand, people were back to work, back to shopping, back to going out and attending events. There were public discussions of future economic policy and travel bubbles.

Still the Government provided plenty of warning, announcing a detailed defence plan should cases of community spread re-emerge. We were told not to get complacent and to pay attention to the outbreaks in Victoria and New South Wales. We were told to keep a supply of masks handy.

But hearing it is not the same as being confronted with a return to level three lockdown in Auckland and level two in the rest of the country.

The reports of sudden panic buying at supermarkets suggest that the night-time announcement on Tuesday was still a jolt for some, underlined by the screech of the Covid-19 text alert.

Now the virus is even more front and centre of the election, just weeks away. The campaign itself could now be limited and questions hang over the voting process.

It also gives the campaign a different tone, especially if restrictions are extended. The lines between governing and campaigning will inevitably be blurred.

Rediscovering the unity of the earlier lockdown is going to be harder in the middle of an election when people are in politically partisan mindsets.

There are also the issues of trust and blame over this outbreak, especially after the border protocols were overhauled and tightened a few months ago.

Since then there have been regular incidents of people escaping from managed facilities, but we got lucky. Other countries suffered outbreaks linked to their quarantine hotels or nightclubs, but we got lucky.

The fact that there were doses of luck will anger some people.

On the whole, considering the thousands of people who flew home and went through quarantine and testing protocols without incident, the process has been adequately managed.

While the idea of total control is comforting in a scary situation, in reality nothing can be 100 per cent guaranteed and nailed down.

This is a cruel and slippery virus - it will take any opportunity to infect any passing body. And as is well documented, it can do so without showing symptoms.

Short of preventing anyone arriving from offshore, or imprisoning them for a period, there was always a likelihood that the virus would at some stage slip through the barriers.

Now, like receiving bad health news from the doctor, we have to accept that the outbreak has happened and that further community infections are likely.

It is done, we have to accept it, and do our bit to bring the outbreak under control. There are legitimate questions about our long-term strategy, but for now, having achieved elimination for a time before, we know it can be done - and what it takes to do it.