Mike Hosking: Slow vaccine rollout has left us sitting ducks

Shall we use the phrase of the age?

We dodged a bullet?

But did we? Wellington is back to level one as of midnight Tuesday.

Is this not the first time the country has had levels shifted for literally nothing.

Zero cases.

This time a bloke comes to the capital, wanders round the capital leaves the capital …and….and nothing.

It happened twice in Auckland, the zero case scenario seems to be a thing.

The British variant was the reason for so much nervousness, now it’s the Delta variant and yet each time …nothing.

That’s a lot of days with inconvenience and bottom line damage for no cases, just (here’s another hackneyed old phrase) an abundance of caution.

The reason the government reacted in Wellington is the same reason they react the same way every time.

We are sitting ducks, once you shut the border; the border is your only line of defence.

Even with the bubble, the border, given Australia’s shocking vaccine roll out, is still the only line of defence and the reason it’s the only line of defence is because of the astonishingly shoddy vaccine roll out here as well.

Back when there was no vaccine it kind of made sense, better safe than sorry. Better to have wrecked a business or two with your abundance of caution than have an outbreak you couldn’t handle.

But with the vaccine, all of that should be gone by now.

We don’t need the caution because a vastly better mechanism is available to us and has been all year.

And this is why Wellington has been such an embarrassment, and why the government really had no other choice than to yet again lock down for no good reason, other than fear.

Because they couldn’t afford not to, because yet again they hadn’t done their job properly.

At 122 in the world for roll outs, we are no better off at the start of July than we were at the start if January, half a year has gone.

We are as vulnerable as ever because we weren’t at the front of the cue, there was actually a hurry and all the crap they spouted is now proving a humiliation, as slowly but surely we all work out none of it had to be this way.

Wellington, welcome back to level 1, but you never had to be moved at all.

If only the vaccine programme was run by someone awake, and who put as much energy into buying it rolling it out as they did into  spinning bs about being at the front of queues and being in no hurry.

Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings.