Don’t let so many in

Like the elderly man in the British comedy One Foot in the Grave ,I have found myself saying often this week, ‘‘I don’t believe it’’, in relation to the revelations about the so-called management of MIQ.

I have done my bit – I started shopping in early February last year, put myself in lockdown 10 days before the national call to do so. I was the only person to wear a face mask on an eight-hour packed bus ride to Auckland and back to Hastings. I have no reservations around having whatever vaccine I am offered.

So who or what are letting me down? Well, the Government. MIQ is too big, too many people are coming in to the country, needing

too many people to facilitate that. It should be one plane every fortnight, one MIQ at Whangapara¯ oa or the like, away from communities. Run entirely by the military, who live on site, six weeks on, the last week in isolation, and four weeks off, along with regular testing. No traveling to and from work on public transport, no popping into the supermarket, pub, or coffee shop.

Then there are my tax dollars. Why don’t returnees pay for their stay in MIQ upfront? Did the 12 folk who flew straight out after completing their stay pay?

Kindness is a luxury you dish out with a firm hand. This Government had the country in the palm of its hand, back last March, but it has taken its foot off the gas. Jackie Patterson, Hastings [abridged]