I have been at the local government Rural and Provincial sector meeting in Wellington this week and one of the highlights was getting an update from Dr Ashley Bloomfield.  

He opened by advising that the pandemic situation is still very unpredictable worldwide and at home.  For example, he told us Covid is on the rise again in England to the extent that yesterday’s number of new cases in England would equate to 300 in New Zealand based on our population.  

The highest new daily total he announced to the country last year was 90. 

We truly don’t know how lucky we are and that is shown by the complacency in NZ presently.  

I asked for a show of hands amongst those present of those who had used the tracer app in the last 24 hours and by my rough reckoning, 40% of the people in the room hadn’t.  

I found that extraordinary amongst supposed leaders in our nation, especially given they were all travelling away from home and were spending the day sitting in a crowded room, but there you go.

From what I see in my wanderings around Central, I truly doubt 60% of people are regularly using the app, which is really worrying.  

I have whanau living in Melbourne who are just emerging from a 14 day lockdown; with the associated economic cost not to mention the effect on peoples relationships and mental well-being.  

That could so easily be us; and the risk has only increased since the bubble with Australia opened.

And let’s not forget that this hideous virus kills people with dreadful efficiency.  We lost none of our people last year, which I still consider a minor miracle.  I really don’t want us holding our breath and seeing if we get that lucky ever again.

I’m the sort of person who works out the cost/benefit ratio of things.  The cost of using the app is a tiny number of seconds a day. That is all.  A miniscule piece of inconvenience. 

The benefit is our chances of avoiding illness, deaths and/or a lockdown if/when the virus comes back to our place are greatly reduced if we all do our bit and use the scanner.  . 

It really is a no-brainer isn’t it?