Member-only story
We’re in Lockdown, and So Happy
New Zealand discovered one case of COVID-19 and went into full lockdown. It was the best decision we ever made.
Level 4 Lockdown
At 3:30 in the afternoon the office started buzzing about a single community case of COVID. We all knew the drill. My coworkers and I packed up our computers and headed home. It was the first case in New Zealand in six months, and one of only a handful since the beginning of the pandemic 18 months ago. Throughout the city we saw the signs of impending lockdown. Men in suits on scooters carried leather laptop bags in one arm and a keyboard in the other. Some office workers carried monitors. We were ready for the long haul.
We had one case.
Three hours after discovering this case, by six in the evening, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced a seven day national lockdown, effective at midnight.
I almost cried. I was so happy.
The Message
We’ve watched the world burn while we went to cafes and concerts and surfed at the beach. We read articles about a “new normal” while we lived the old normal. We heard about the protests, the arguments, the unrest, but it didn’t affect us. We kept our borders closed. And it worked.