Well we have Omicron here, 10 cases in the South Island and so on Saturday Jacinda Ardern, our prime minister, announced that we are going immediately into the "red" of our traffic light system. Anyone with Covid will have to self isolate for 14 days (probably in an army managed MIQ facility) and any household contacts will have to isolate at home for 24 days without going out. 

24 days!!!!!!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10435021/New-Zealand-braces-TOILET-PAPER-shortages-Jacinda-Ardern-announced-harsh-new-restrictions.html - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10435021/New-Zealand-braces-TOILET-PAPER-shortages-Jacinda-Ardern-announced-harsh-new-restrictions.html

We've all been told to get a buddy set up that we'll shop for if they are stuck at home, or who will shop for us if we are stuck at home. 

Frankly this is madness. I was talking to a friend yesterday who employs 17 people in her business and as she said, she has plenty of young, low paid workers who will treat this as an opportunity to get some free holiday because the government will pay them $600 a week while they are isolating. Another friend who also owns a business with about 40 staff said the same. 

To add to the madness, an article in our national press said yesterday "Is it hayfever, a cold or Covid?" and in the article it said even if you suffer from hayfever and you get normal hayfever symptoms, you are to assume it's Covid and go and get tested. How stupid is that? There are no at home tests available - obviously because we are all toddlers and can't be trusted to test ourselves - and instead you have to go to the local doctors or a testing facility in the city. 

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/explained/300502186/covid19-is-it-omicron-a-cold-or-hayfever-symptoms-to-look-out-for - https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/explained/300502186/covid19-is-it-omicron-a-cold-or-hayfever-symptoms-to-look-out-for

This is verging on unbelievable. Jacinda has gone mad and she's fighting a losing a battle. It's out there now and I doubt it can be stopped. Look at what happened in Australia.

Well on average there are a billion cases of the common cold in the US annually. Treat every common cold, hay fever, flu ect like it is Omnicron? LOL.  And by far and away the vast majority of those with Omnicron will have symptoms exactly like that of the common cold, if they have any symptoms at all. Sorry folks no reason to panic. And don't let'em buy into the panic in NZ Kiwimum, that is the real pandemic, a mass psychosis of media induced pandemic panic.

Seems kinda excessive on the quarantine and isolation period lengths in NZ. Here in the US health care workers are going back to work infected with omnicron after 5 days quarantine . And I know this for a fact as my exwife  who is a nurse and has covid was back at work on day 6 last week she told me. Oh and she was triple vaxxed. Yep it's that dangerous LOL.

Well today we get an update on what happens next. I'll keep you informed. With a 24 day isolation, I can't see the supermarkets staying open can you? There'll be no staff. 

Kiwimum, I'm sure that order has provisions for essential workers that would include grocery workers.  I'd be very surprised if it failed to do so.  

Well we've had an update. That 24 day isolation applies to everyone without exception until we reach 1000 cases a day. At that point, nurses and essential workers like supermarket workers, will be able to test after a shortened period of time and go back to work if the test is negative. It's all a complete disaster here, it really is. I have friends who are teachers and who run businesses and the government is being very vague with their directives but threatening huge fines if you get it wrong but they won't give exact guidelines. 

For example, my friend is a school principal and he wants to know what the procedure is if a child test positive, does that mean the rest of the class are now classified as close contacts and have to isolate for 24 days? And what about if a teacher is positive, does that mean every child they have taught is a close contact?

The government as also intercepted all private business orders of rapid antigen tests and has requisitioned them for their own use. In addition, if I, as a private citizen, mail order any tests at all, I face 6 months in prison!!!!!! A man wrote into the newspaper and was expressing his concern that his mother, who lives with them, is frail and has dementia, yet if he gets some tests so he can monitor her health he is liable for criminal prosecution, and instead the government wants him to put his elderly mother in a car, drive her into town for a test and then bring her home again. Just the journey alone would be taxing for her, not to mention the risk of exposure taking her to a testing centre where there are lots of people who think they have covid. 

Honestly NZ has become a police state. It's unbelievable. Jacinda Ardern is power crazy and a control freak. The discussion in the press is that she won't allow anyone to test themselves because she wants to keep control of it all. That course of action is unsustainable and pissing everyone off. Every day businesses are going to the wall. She is single handedly wrecking our economy. 

This morning the paper leads with the headline that we have 700 active cases of Covid at the border in managed isolation. The previous high was 120. We can't keep it out.

So sorry Kiwi!  That does not sound pleasant!  Hang in there!

Follow the science right KiwiMum. NZ 24 days. US 5 days. Never mind there is a 480% difference between the two, that's just science LOL.