Kate Hawkesby: Odds are... Delta could make its way to NZ

 

My kids and my husband think I’ve gone mad; it wouldn’t be the first time.

But I can't help this sense of foreboding at the moment, that we just won't and can't escape Delta coming here.

I’m not scaremongering; I’m not saying this to cause alarm. I’m just incredulous as to how we’ve escaped it thus far.

Because we are virtually the only country to do so.

Yes our geography and isolation helps, yes sheer good luck helps, we avoided potential catastrophe with the Wellington traveller didn’t we? That could’ve been a lot worse. But I can't help thinking logic would dictate that’s it’s only a matter of time.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope I’m way off beam. (However I have been ramping up my health and wellbeing lectures to my kids.)

I'm also mentally preparing myself for what will be our only possible response given our slow vaccination rollout; a lockdown.

We would have to respond just like Australia is now.

I’m just looking at the odds and going 'hmmmm.'

How long until it accidentally trips its way in here?  How much luck do people get? Let’s be frank, we’ve had huge amounts of it so far.

I’m grateful that my parents got vaccinated, a lot of people in the older category still aren’t and that’s a travesty. I feel bad for the people who can’t advocate or hustle for it, or have trouble getting to a vaccination centre, or just don’t know how to go about it.

There’re older people in this country who are alone or just don’t have the means to push themselves forward for a vaccine which they’re entitled to. I was told yesterday of a 90 year old man with respiratory issues who lives in his own home, and has still not been offered a vaccine. That breaks my heart; people like him should absolutely have been contacted for a vaccine by now.

And in communities where vaccines are being offered but they’re not turning up for them? Let’s fill those slots with people who ARE keen. I was at the optometrist yesterday and I asked him if he’d been vaccinated, given he could be described as a health worker, surely.

Certainly, he’s in people’s faces, literally, on a daily basis. Surely, he’d be somewhere near the top of the list? But he’s not vaccinated yet either.

In fact, he said the Optometry Board has had to proactively agitate with the Government to make a case for vaccinating optometrists. They’ve only just found out they can book vaccines now. He’s getting his in two weeks.

So I hope I'm way off beam, and that maybe we really can be virtually the only country in the world to escape Delta.

But I do worry that at this point, we may just be pushing our luck.

Kate Hawkesby is a political broadcaster on Newstalk ZB - her articles can be seen HERE.