From The Editor

‘Be Kind’ has become some sort of ‘mantra du jour’ since the PM started using it when the Covid-19 coronavirus ‘epidemic’ first arrived here.

That was a whole year ago now, however, and if you were either one of the first to contract it, or – if you had a (usually elderly) close relative/ loved one die of the virus – then you needed, nay you ‘deserved,’ all the kindness, the rest of us, wrapped up, as it were, in our own little familybased bubbles, could muster.

We were, after-all, a ‘team of five million’ and what was good for one of us must – by definition – be good for the other 4,999,999.

A lot – of course – can change in a year.

For example. My own attitude and response when I hear Jacinda Ardern, start or finish a press conference with those two simple (but loaded) bloody words.

“Be Kind? Be Kind?” I’ll grumble to anyone in earshot. “Bollocks to that!” In fact, having read about the cavalier way those at the heart of the latest Papatoetoe cluster behaved in the face of a direct threat from the latest, even more infectious, UK strain of Covid-19, I’m of the opinion that kindness is the last thing they deserve.

Some sort of criminal negligence charge is what I think is really needed. But if there isn’t the appetite for that then how about a good old naming and shaming,

You think I’m kidding?

Hell no! I’m deadly serious. You see, Auckland’s latest lockdown into level 3 (which lasted seven days from 6:00am on Sunday Feb 28 to 6.00am on Sunday Mach 07) was entirely avoidable – had two members from the same family decided that requests for close contacts of the original Papatoetoe Cluster self-isolate at home did not apply to them!!!!

As the NZ Herald’s website reported after the PM and her Cabinet’s hastily convened meeting on Saturday Feb 27: “Aucklanders are back in Level-3 restrictions for a full week and the rest of New Zealand is at level 2... after a 21-year-old MIT student – known as Case M – visited various public locations before testing positive. He then went to the gym when he should have been in isolation.”

As one of my Facebook friends posted on Sunday; “They say you can’t fix stupid, turns out you can’t quarantine it either.”

Had he ‘done the right thing’ by the rest of us, Case M, would not now be the subject of the opprobrium* he now is.

The fact that he didn’t means – in my book anyway – that the buck should stop with him.

As Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern acknowledged as she announced the latest lockdown:

“Plainly, everyone is paying the price. What has happened is a clear breach and everyone is frustrated by it.”

Opprobrium

Noun

“Public disgrace arising from shameful conduct; an occasion or cause of reproach or disgrace; harsh criticism or censure.”