‘She’ll be right’ attitude could kill us

One person. Out of 35 people who wandered through the doors, just one person did what they were meant to.

It took only seconds, a few presses of their phone, and that one person did their part to keep the rest of the country safe. His name was Bill, and he’s nearly 90 years old.

New Zealanders are a fine bunch of people but, by crikey, we’re a blimmin’ useless lot at times.

While part of our national charm is our relaxed approach to life, right now we’re taking the ‘‘she’ll be right’’ attitude way too far. And it’s going to come back to bite us.

As we enjoy freedoms other nations can only dream of, the downside of our success at keeping the coronavirus at bay is the complacency it has bred.

As a result, our use of the Covid-19 tracer app has plummeted, with the number of daily scans down to a fifth of its peak. The app registered 515,759 scans across the country on January 11, down from a high of 2.5 million on September 4, 2020.

Unless a few million of us have suddenly and inexplicably decided to stay home, something is going very wrong.

We’re so useless at doing this one simple thing that experts want scanning to become mandatory at places with the potential to be ‘‘super-spreader’’ venues, such as nightclubs and bars. That’s right: we can’t be trusted to keep ourselves safe, so it has to become law.

Look, I get it. Lifting your cellphone up for a few seconds, or writing your name and address on a piece of paper, is exhausting, especially if you have to do it a few times a day. That’s why I gave up.

Like so many other New Zealanders, I used the app religiously in the first few months of the pandemic battle before stopping completely. Even the soaring worldwide death toll, warnings from experts and pleas from the Government couldn’t motivate me to pull my cellphone out of my pocket once complacency set in.

When I was finally shamed into using it again recently, I saw my last check-in was six weeks earlier, and while my social life may be a bit grim at times, I have been out since then. I swear.

Last week, in the name of journalism, I went and sat at a shopping mall to judge the bad people who weren’t doing the thing I had just started doing again. It was lunchtime on a Thursday and the place was pumping.

The shop I sat outside for half an hour had QR codes on either side of the door, as well as pen and paper for those lucky enough not to have to carry a cellphone.

Bill has an iPhone, and he hates it.

His son gave it to him to use in an emergency, though the only emergencies Bill has these days are having to make his own cuppa when his home help isn’t about.

It’s a stupid thing, Bill’s iPhone.

It’s complicated and flashy and there’s something about the idea that anyone can reach him whenever they want that he doesn’t like; it’s like a dog whistle for humans.

Despite that, he’d been using it on QR codes – ‘‘whatever QR stands for’’ – since lockdown ended, and he was allowed to escape his unit.

When I pointed out he was the only person to scan in, he wasn’t surprised.

People are too busy, too selfish, too stupid to realise just how deadly the virus is.

‘‘They still think it only kills the old buggers like me.’’

ALDEN WILLIAMS/STUFF Our use of the Covid-19 tracer app has plummeted with the number of daily scans down to a fifth of its peak.