Thomas Coughlan: Jacinda Ardern told to isolate on likely wedding day, we wish her well

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was told to go into isolation on the day she was meant to get married. Photo / Hagen Hopkins-Pool

OPINION:

Saturday might have been the Prime Minister's wedding day - she was meant to get married in late January after all - but instead of walking up the aisle, sometime during the day she received a phone call informing her she was present at an exposure event, and had to go into isolation.

Ardern was not at her wedding on Saturday. She'd wisely made the decision to can it after putting the country under the "red" traffic light setting - critics can point to many failings of this Government, but Ardern does lead from the front and subjects herself to the same restrictions as everyone else (Boris Johnson, take note).

The fact she might have caught the virus while making an effort to appear at Waitangi despite formal celebrations being cancelled is also to her credit. In her first appearance at Waitangi as prime minister, Ardern asked that she continue to be held to account on her return. To her credit, after a year in which the Government's commitment to Te Tiriti has been shaken by a shaky vaccine rollout, she didn't use the cancellation of in-person commemorations as an excuse to shirk returning to Waitangi, even if it was just to record a video.

Her tendency to follow the rules will likely help her; she's a fastidious mask-wearer and is (almost) always seen abiding by whatever public health measures are in place.

That said, Omicron is incredibly infectious and if half of the population is expected to get it at some stage, we should hardly be surprised that our Auckland-resident, frequent-flying Prime Minister is among the first.

For a select few, the possibility of Ardern and the Governor-General, Dame Cindy Kiro, coming down with Covid is a good excuse to brush up on the order of precedence. For everyone else, her infection has no meaning beyond an opportunity to empathise with a hard-working prime minister who might have caught a virus she's been fighting in one form or another for two years.

It's easy to overreact. Ardern is young, healthy and boosted - she'll be fine. Every prime minister gets sick.

If she tests positive, it will cause difficulty for Cabinet and Parliament, Cabinet met virtually last week, so some ministers will have avoided becoming close contacts. However, Ardern had in-person meetings with some ministers, who will be close contacts and have to go into isolation. That difficulty shouldn't be overstated either, Cabinet met virtually in 2020. Everyone knew ministers would get Covid and infect each other before long.

The only meaning one can really attach to this episode is a symbolic one - if the Prime Minister and Governor-General can get Covid, anyone can. There's no outrunning this variant. It might encourage people to get vaccinated and boosted and prepare for a lumpy end to summer.

For most New Zealanders, Covid hasn't been an experience of illness or death. It's been an accumulation of private pains: cancelled weddings, and funerals, tangihanga, held over Zoom. There's a powerful symbolic value in the prime minister sharing in this pain with her own, private story (as private as prime ministers can be).

There's nothing really to do but wait, hope for a negative test, and wish the Prime Minister well if she tests positive. She's certainly earned a sick day (though it's hard to imagine her taking one).

Get used to that feeling - it will become familiar for all of us before too long.