Covid Restrictions Finally End – Winners, Losers & Predictions

ByMartyn Bradbury

Coronavirus: Jacinda Ardern announces end to traffic light COVID-19 restrictions

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced the end to New Zealand’s traffic light system and most mask requirements.

From Tuesday, the COVID-19 traffic light system is no longer and masks will only be required in healthcare and aged care settings. Only COVID-19-positive individuals will have to isolate for seven days from now on. There are no longer isolation requirements for household contacts.

All Government vaccine mandates will come to an end on September 26, while vaccination requirements for incoming travellers and air crews are being removed.

While this marks an end to most COVID-19 requirements, leave support payments will still be available for unwell Kiwis.

The State’s boot upon our throat has finally lifted and we are free to be selfish arseholes again!

What a ride it’s been folks.

A once in a century pandemic, a State that had underfunded and run down its heath services suddenly having to deal with an enormous public health crises,  Kiwi solidarity in the height of uncertainty, Business screaming, a surge in disinformation, Dumb Lives Matter protests, the largest wealth transfer in NZs history with a Trillion going to the richest and the most vulnerable being left behind because the stagnant nature of NZs inequality got worse not better.

We agreed to vast curtailing of our civil liberties, we collectively sacrificed and we’ve ended up more divided than ever.

Hardly a fucking victory parade through the streets of Rome is it?

There are of course political winners and losers of Covid Restrictions finally ending.

WINNERS:

Jacinda – She led this country through an unprecedented event. Her courage, her leadership, her empathy and compassion saved this country and for that, and that alone, she deserves your vote in 2023.

Civil Liberty – Gaining back agency for individuals is important in any democracy.

Democracy – This was our system working. The State makes a decision to restrict our civil liberties following the best medical science and the moment that medical threat is neutralised, the State hands back the civil liberties. This is our system at its best.

Science – We listened to it, and it worked. Now do climate change.

 

LOSERS:

Political Right – Will the restrictions and people’s natural friction to them still be an issue in 13 months time for the Right? Not really.  There’s a fundamental difference between, ‘it took too long’ and ‘they still haven’t made the changes’.

Qanon feral antivaxers – These fucking lunatics who claimed Jacinda was taking over with a Police state were always off the fucking planet. Now Jacinda has reset our agency, all that nonsense garbage can be called out for what it always was, the ravings of sad, lonely, desperate fear grifters.

Mask Identititarians – Those who have welded strict Covid restrictions onto their identity while micro aggression policing anyone who infringed that has been an enormous emotional crutch of superiority that they will find very difficult to give up. These people give their masks pronouns. They will wail, they will scream, they will vote Green, but no one cares anymore.

Disabled Community – Once again left behind. The appalling way they were only given 24 hours to respond simply highlights the manner in which they have always been bullied by the majority. Surely a lesson here is that the pittance we provide in resource, benefits, housing and medical services needs an enormous injection of funding, as compensation for deciding to lift Covid restrictions.

Old people –  Covid is still an illness that kills mostly old people. We hate old people in NZ, that’s why the corporate retirement gulags are so hideous. They will continue to die but we won’t really care unless they die so much it impacts the rest off us somehow.

 

PREDICTIONS:

Here’s the naked truth. Covid is a novel virus, it’s spent the last couple of years being as transmissible as possible, but that is being thwarted by vaccinations, so its evolutionary energy will now go into getting around the hosts immunity.

We haven’t seen the last of Covid and the real possibility of a new, much more deadly mutation of the virus simply can’t be ruled out.

We also aren’t taking into account long covid and the damage on the heart Covid causes.

Truancy is through the roof thanks to the break down of Covid and our collective mental health has been hurt.

None of this heals easily, especially with the possibility of new outbreaks.

We survived the Covid Battle, I don’t know how we will live the Covid Peace and it’s not clear if the Covid War has actually ended.

 

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73 Comments

  1. I disagree that truancy is up – you have fallen into a right wing talking point there. There is a much larger contingent of students who have not attended 90% of the school year, but given that they have to stay home for the slightest sniffle and then for a week if anyone in their family gets covid then that is not a surprise.

    There is a world of difference between truancy and justified absence.

    1. I will keep wearing N95 mask or better until variant proof, sterilizing vax rolled out. And I can get cheap, effective treatment for Chronic Covid.

      We are in the middle of a pandemic.

      1. Good on ya moon rekt, nothing wrong with protecting yourself. One thing I’ve learned is that wearing a mask and other healthy living tweaks are sensible if we feel vulnerable to catching things. I remember 3 years ago I scoffed at seeing the add Asian around wearing a mask. I don’t scoff now. I’ve still not caught covid yet n am no longer fearful too, but I did catch my first common cold last week, first in many years. Caught from workmate who’d run out of sick days n came to work coughing and snotting all round the workplace and lunch room. No mask. I find that a bit shocking now, people not wearing masks when they are sick.

      2. “I will keep wearing N95 mask or better until variant proof, sterilizing vax rolled out. And I can get cheap, effective treatment for Chronic Covid.

        We are in the middle of a pandemic.”

        Sensible you.
        Me too, after all, how hard is it to wear a mask? it’s certainly easier than wearing a CPAP or BiPAP mask or being intubated, I know that, I been on those things.

        Nah, I’ll also wait for the figures to come down to effectively zero or more effective vaccine arrives..

    3. “On par with entitled bicyclists.”

      Oh man, XRAY and his bicycles.

      It’s just sad.

  3. “Mask Identititarians” is an odd thing to point out without acknowledging the other side of the coin. All those drop kicks that went on like wearing a mask for a few minutes in a supermarket was akin to the end of democracy, rather than trying help out the vulnerable.

    I am already waiting for Frank to jump in and say masks don’t work. Oddly enough other countries that have already dropped mask wearing saw their infections rates go up. No that is not a clinical study, but it’s pretty f*cking obvious that impeding access to the mouth and nose will do airborne transmission no favours, however imperfect.

    1. ““Mask Identititarians” is an odd thing to point out without acknowledging the other side of the coin.”

      Agreed, perhaps Martyn has been called out some place where he should have been wearing a mask. No one likes to be reprimanded.

      While the public health directives for mask wearing were in place it was perfectly reasonable to expect people to respect them. It’s the selfish few pathetics who thought that non-compliance was some sort of brave badge of identity that are the losers. The rest of us were given the opportunity to identify such “Karens” amongst us.

  4. Au contrare, Martyn- the biggest winners are the antivaxers and libertarians who worship ‘freedumb’ as a God above all others, who were entirely correct in pointing out that Jacinda’s weak and ineffectual half-measure did nothing and simply interfered with people going about their lives no differently from how they would anyway. If they had cared about people there would have been real lockdowns. As it was, they should just have taken the Brian Tamaki line as they are now- the effect is the same.

    The vulnerable people who were supposedly supposed to be protected have already been dying en masse, and that will only marginally increase now.

    Ardern is spending billions on new revenue-collection speed cameras, claiming that it’s going to reduce the few hundred road deaths that occur each year. Meanwhile, we’re looking at thousands of unnecessary deaths from COVID, but those weren’t enough to justify taking real action, I guess.

    1. We did have “real” lockdowns. As for the antivax crowd you say they were pointing out “half measures”. Some may have been, while others were seeing if spoons stuck to those vaccinated, and complained of microchips in vaccines etc. Absolute fruit cakes.

      1. Really? Was Auckland actually locked down when Ardern dropped any attempt to stop the spread of COVID? A city as low density as Auckland would only have needed two-three weeks of actual lockdown to stop the spread. Instead the virus was allowed to run out of control.

        There is no difference between Brian Tamaki and Jacinda Ardern, except the latter pretends to care more about vulnerable people, while objectively being no different.

    2. Why don’t you post a credible link to support your “have already been dying en masse” claim?

  5. When addressing the one off public holiday for remembering the queens life, Barry Sopers child bride Heather DPA stated it will be hard on business due to Labour having had us locked down for a ridiculously long time.
    She then stated we should have a public holiday to commemorate the Queen.
    How long has Newstalk ZB been a right wing propaganda station?
    They also fall under the loser category.

  6. My only quibble is the lack of mask wearing on public transport. Some of the people vulnerable to infection risk use public transport (some sort of commuter car service might be developed if this pandemic lingers on). This should be the first thing to return if new case numbers surge.

  7. The Govt.waved the white flag on COVID months ago. Once the PM used that word made ugly by business and the entitled…CERTAINTY…you knew it was now officially everyone for themselves.

    The Wellington rabble got what they wanted, the FB whingers, misogynists and arseholes got what they wanted, aggrieved thickos across the land got what they wanted. And Martyn is correct in that it is a good look for the state to actually return rights for once, but I would argue it is too soon for public health. But not too soon for political reasons.

    There is a meme that still rings true–“wearing a mask is both an IQ test and an empathy test”, I for one will keep wearing a mask in appropriate settings. Have already been abused in Far North where I live for wearing one in Mangonui by Sovereign supporters.

    A lot has changed for ever during COVID if you have been paying even some attention.

    1. “The Govt.waved the white flag on COVID months ago……
      ….The Wellington rabble got what they wanted, the FB whingers, misogynists and arseholes got what they wanted, aggrieved thickos across the land got what they wanted”

      Tiger Mountain got it.

  8. I’m in a supposed risk group but didn’t get vaccinated and I don’t wear a mask. Who cares, there is no more threat to my health now than there was five years or fifty years ago. We must take health precautions and address risk based on science and evidence not opinion and emotion. This was more about population control and narrative management rather than public health. And these medical luminaries now running around in a panic saying we need to reintroduce restrictions? My advice is to see a medical professional for your mania and neurosis. To summarize, you take a vaccine to IMMUNIZE you against disease, not relieve symptoms. You take a vaccine to protect YOURSELF, not others. And you have to give INFORMED CONSENT to receive a tested and proven medical treatment, otherwise the people giving the treatment are just experimenting on you without regards to ethics, due process or consequences.

    1. Jody, I disagree with your comment ” take a vaccine to protect YOURSELF, not others.” That is way too simplistic as vaccination did help reduce transmission with earlier strains. That is “based on science and not emotion”

    3. Well Jody, that comment of yours was about as selfishly vile and as ignorant as we’ve come to expect from you. You don’t disappoint.

        1. Jody It is quite simple. You live amongst people I suppose, and so you affect the group and vice versa. Good people wanting good community work in together, make a compromise here and there where they can. If you are woman alone up in the hills, just organise a drop of provisions at boundary point. That is what has been done in past epidemics in the world.

  9. My prediction is there’ll be more Destiny rallies with idiots who railed and marched against masks for covid, wearing masks to disguise themselves.

  10. Our fragile consensual unity is a casualty. Tribalism is not unity. Tribes need targets of blame onto which to project its own shortcomings and inflict punishments and ostracism. Tribes do not act according to compassion and integrity. They suppress and control according to a joint egotism and a destructive identity in the place of principle and care. The result is a dangerous parody of unity.

    The truth is a huge casualty. The extremity of covid censorship will take a very long time to overcome. Science allowed itself to pretend it was a singular ‘certainty’, two things true science can never be. Science evolves and collaborates through open mindedness, free exchange of information and open discourse. Scientists and medical clinicians attacked those among themselves who tried to behave in accord with their own discipline. Yet information is necessary to the mission of saving lives and promoting well-being.

    Friends, families and communities turned on each other.

    The left is the biggest loser: to the witch hunts, to its own latent authoritarianism, to its lack of being based in an understanding of what left actually is. It showed itself to have descended into incoherence and effective meaninglessness. To being empty buzz-phrases, team tee-shirts: unprincipled, tribalised, hierarchical, self-interest.

    It will take a national ‘truth and reconciliation’ to overcome the harm to our communities – but I’m not holding my breath.

    1. “Science allowed itself to pretend it was a singular ‘certainty’”

      I disagree, that interpretation was imposed on “Science” from external positions, for example by the media or by commercial interests such as agri-chemicals and pharmaceutical industries. In its own arena (peer review academia etc), Science has overwhelmingly been conducted with a spirit of robust scepticism.

      That aside, i think your comments above are valuable.

  11. The biggest loser obviously is this hopeless Government, who put all these restictions in place (and yes this is yelling) FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER.

  13. So, we had a once in a century pandemic and yet we still have the same underfunded health system as before. We heeded calls for solidarity and yet we still live in uncertain times. We collectively sacrificed a ton and yet now we are divided. And at the same time we’ve seen “the largest wealth transfer in NZs history”.

    Yep, we have a lot to thank government for, for sure…..

  14. Someone left the rabbit hutch door open again…

    The funny thing is those that have problems with public health measures are possibly still here because of them!

  15. I’m so over BusinessNZ Kirk Hope, ACT and National whining constantly,
    like their throat has been cut.
    Not even a day off to remember the Queen was safe.

    1. I wonder whether Kirk would take a day off to go to his own mother’s funeral, I’d say no, given his penchant for money.

  16. I’m so over BusinessNZ Kirk Hope, ACT and National whining constantly,
    like their throat has been cut.
    Not even a day off to remember the Queen was safe.

    1. Kirk is Scottish for Church. Hope as a surname. Gloriavale couldn’t do better. I blame the parents.

  17. Yep totally agree, Covid is a novel virus. So is Influenza, Pneumonia, Cat flu and a myriad of other ailments that are bestowed upon us from time to time.

  18. Excellent post Martyn – spells out how it is, was, will be likely. As one of our sages remarked ‘We have finished with Covid! But Covid hasn’t finished with us’!! Pity we have a political class that wants to virtually lie around on Roman couches eating grapes, or pretend that they are good keen people who can milk cows or goats by hand, such fun and so healthy in the good country air with the fresh smell of pine resin and investment money all around.

    ‘Anything you feral lower class can do we can do better, with machines, cheaper and prettier. So shove off.’ That is the message I find under each stone I move.

  19. Frank the Tank – they can’t crawl anywhere. You have flattened them with the heavyweight of your damning criticism and they are flatter than flat – like in the road runner icartoons – does anyone remember them? Perhaps they were prophetic or apocryphal or something. I’ve always wanted to use that word!

    Actually here is a link for the cartoons and they are devilishly clever. I don’t know if we could somehow emulate the genius that went into devising the tricks and the misadventures? They are like an analogy of our efforts in the world in the last few decades!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi5Hm2MfyjU

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