I'm on a rant
We, this 'Team of Five Million' are into lockdown again.
It's been interesting how the general attitude has been "Bugger. Again. Shit. Oh well, let's get on with it." And Kiwis have got on with it, without anywhere near as much fuss as the first time. Impressive really.
Meanwhile we all watch or listen each day to the update on where that 'Bugger' has managed to spread itself around the country.
To over 100 Kiwis now, from Auckland to Wellington. All those 100 having been the result of one person who travelled back into NZ from New South Wales with the Bugger bug. We now wait another 24 hours to hear what Tuesday's result will be.
Overall, I find that following where and how quickly it is spreading quite fascinating - not in a macabre way but merely from an amateur scientific perspective. That little bugger sure does travel fast.
So we are vigilantly in lockdown and sit inside on phones, pcs, ipads or in front of the television. Or potter about the place being creative in many ways. For me it was baking a Raspberry Cake today from a recipe I found. Cake came out looking beautiful. Pity I'd forgotten to put the raspberries in it.
And us 5 million potter and wait and will that the statistics do go down.
My Covid daily routine is to wake in the morning, make myself a cup of tea then slide back into the warm flannelette sheeted bed with the cup and mobile phone to check the national and international news on Stuff, The NZ Herald, The Dominion and sometimes the British papers.
On the first full day of lockdown I was somewhat irritated
by the British press taking the mickey out of New Zealand for going into
lockdown. That day a renown British
journalist mocked our country for being quote: "plunged into a nationwide lockdown with
all vaccinations cancelled because of one Covid case. That' right, ONE case of a virus we all know
we have to learn to live with."
Being a journalist from one British paper, The Telegraph, I scoffed at that
piece of writing - some of it being purposely written incorrectly. The vaccination centres were closed for one
day to enable them to gear up for what was coming. He purposely implied we had
cancelled all our vaccinations, permanently. He was laughing at us. On some facts that were not facts.
After swipping to the next news page I reminded myself how bad British journalism is.
Then this morning I dared venture into some more British papers and realised there seemed to be an overall floodgate of British journalists knocking and mocking us Kiwis for our serious steps to keep ourselves Covid free and to save lives.
I am not going to quote the numerous articles now - they can be easily downloaded. But my poor English sister-in-law received my ranting message on WhatsAp of my opinion of the intellect and ignorance of their general journalistic fraternity. Poor lady, no doubt wondering what drugs I'm on and may wonder if Covid has affected the overall Kiwi psyche.
Then on turning the television news the sports coverage had interesting pieces of the various football matches that had been played in the UK over the weekend.
A camera did a visual sweep of the spectators of one stadium and a commentator commented the stadium was full to capacity with over 60,000 in attendance. I replayed the shot to take another look. 60,000 people and not one facial mask was seen. All in one cramped stadium. All yelling and cheering.
Then my brain started thinking. Yes, a strange occurrence but nonetheless it can sometimes churn.
To date Britain has had 154,811 people die from the Covid-19 virus. One hundred and fifty-four thousands, eight hundred and eleven people. People. Individuals. Human beings. Mums, dads, grandmas, grandpas, sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, work mates, old friends, colleagues, husbands, wives. 154,811 human beings, dead - in JUST 18 months. And judging by the figures continuing (104 died yesterday) that number could be well over 200,000 by early next year.
I pondered. Our Eden Park has a capacity of 50,000. So, go fill up every single seat in our Eden Park. Seat 50,000 people down there. Then march them out and now put in another 50,000 people. Take those out also and put in another 50,000. Take them out and begin starting to fill it up again.
That's how many people have died in the United Kingdom in the past eighteen months from Covid-19. Over 3 full stadiums of lives. Dead. In only 18 months. In a United Kingdom the same land size of New Zealand.
And they mock New Zealand and us five million Kiwis because we don't want ONE person to die of it this time. We are doing everything we can to stop our mate, or friend, or family member from needlessly dying.
Because we care.
Why are our New Zealand journalists not mocking them?
