Aucklanders will for the next week have to continue having their picnics with no more than one other household to allow the decision last week to let senior kids go back to school to spud in, which is what Ardern now seems to be saying. What difference that's going to make is difficult to fathom.
Does it mean that if case numbers are rising in the meantime because of schools opening then the stop sign will be reapplied?
Furrowing her brow and cupping her chin to show how deeply she cares, Ardern says there's not a moment in a day that she's not thinking about how they can ease the pressure in Auckland and how they can improve the situation as quickly as possible.
It's easy. Let the retail sector get back to business now.
Look across the ditch and see what's going on there and consider what's going on in Auckland, where 81 per cent of citizens are now double jabbed and where just three people are in intensive care.
Fifteen hundred Aussies flew home to Sydney and Melbourne yesterday from around the world without having to isolate and in environments where vaccinations don't come close to Auckland's.
They had been doubled jabbed and tested negative before their flights and arrived with their vaccination certificates - something we're not going to be able to get until the end of the month at the earliest.
Yeah well, they have their ways of doing things and we have ours, and ours is called control.
"We've always carved our own path and had our own plan," Ardern says.
We're waiting Prime Minister!
