‘‘This victory belongs squarely to the team of 1.5 million in Auckland’

Today is a day of celebration. We appear to have eliminated Covid – again. Auckland is back in level 2 and the rest of the country has returned to level 1. But this isn’t a victory we can all fairly claim as our own. The team of 5 million didn’t do this; many of them in fact, from the prime minister down, were busy playing the blame game.

And while there were many, many businesses and events around the country hit hard by the latest lockdowns, it was Auckland that had to do most of the heavy lifting.

So this victory belongs squarely to the team of 1.6 million in Auckland, who continue to pay a disproportionately heavy price for shouldering the burden of keeping the rest of the country safe.

Auckland is where most of the MIQ hotels are based, and South Auckland is the place where many of those working there call home. They have to live with the constant threat of an outbreak spreading unknown in their midst.

Even yesterday, the sixth straight day of no community transmission, there were nine new cases in MIQ, every one of them representing a potential new breach.

Auckland is our seawall against that.

So the celebrations today in Auckland will likely be muted because everyone knows now what could be around the corner. Businesses are teetering, families are under strain, and personal lives have been up-ended yet again.

It must be particularly galling that it feels like the rest of the team of 5 million doesn’t seem to have their backs.

Just as the country followed Jacinda Ardern’s call to ‘‘be kind’’ during the first nationwide lockdown, she set the tone for this latest one by finger-pointing.

Calls to the police from people dobbing in their neighbours reportedly surged after her press conference announcing the new lockdown and blaming a South Auckland family who ‘‘broke the rules’’.

People have been angrily calling for a border around South Auckland, even while many of those outside Auckland could barely be bothered paying lip service to the minor inconveniences of living in level 2, like using the tracer app, or wearing masks.

Police figures for Covid-related breaches show rule-breaking has been rife for much of the past 12 months, in fact – and Wellingtonians, not Aucklanders, were the worst offenders.

So it might have been politically expedient for Ardern to find a scapegoat, but the Government might come to regret inviting the rest of the country to turn on the Papatoetoe family at the centre of the latest scare.

New Zealand’s Covid response is based on a high-trust system that succeeded in the main because we felt like we were all in it together.

Once that sense of common purpose goes, there is no hope of policing a lockdown to ensure compliance. There simply aren’t enough police in the country to deal with huge numbers of people wilfully flouting the rules.

Yet with the vaccine rollout expected to take till the end of the year, it’s likely a case of when, not if, the next outbreak occurs.

So we can all be thankful that Auckland has done it again.

But at what cost?

It’s likely a case of when, not if, the next outbreak occurs.