Barry Colman: Ah, the glorious days of the great patriotic battle against Covid-19

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (left) and Director General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield attend a media conference on coronavirus. Photo / Mark Mitchell

COMMENT:

Dad, what did you do during the Great Covid Crisis?

Well, son, I was on the frontline. Testing people to see if they had the virus.

Oh, boy. Where was the front line?

At the supermarket parking lot.

Oh. At the supermarket ... Okay. But there was no cure then was there? You were a hero weren't you? You could have died if you caught it.

Well, son, someone had to do it.

Did you see lots of people dying? Bodies on the street?

Ah, no. No bodies on the street.

But heaps of people died, didn't they?

Ah. No. Not really.

How come?

We all had a holiday. Stayed home for about a month or so. To stop the virus spreading. It was called a lockdown. Why all the questions? Covid was years ago.

We're studying it next term. It's in the curriculum. So everyone stayed at home?

Sort of. Half of us were made essential workers so we just kept going to work. And a lot of office people took their laptops home and carried on working.

But there was a state of emergency wasn't there? The cops could go into anyone's house without a warrant. Things must have been pretty grim.

Yeah, nah. Everyone at home was allowed to go out, to go for a walk or supermarket shopping and stuff and, ha ha, making sure we kept the beer fridge stocked up. But some people got a bit stir crazy. Y'know, depressed.

Medical staff test shoppers who volunteered at a pop-up community COVID-19 testing station at a supermarket carpark in Christchurch. AP Photo/Mark Baker

Depression is bad, isn't it? Depressed people suicide don't they?

Yeah, they can do. I remember we had lots of health experts. They were all talking about it. Mental health, that is.

So, how many suicided during the lockdown?

Well it turned out at the end of the day to be just the usual number – we normally have about ten a week.

Really? What happened to all the experts then?

Nothing really. None of us knew what to expect and the virus could have killed tens of thousands, so they say. We weren't allowed to say much. We had to Unite Against Covid, that's what the government told us. Those were the days. We were all in the Team of Five Million.

Five million against the Chinese Plague?

Gees, son. Don't call it that. Where did you pick up that sort of language? It was Covid 19. Call it by its proper name. You won't pass the subject if you start insulting the Peoples Republic.

Sorry, dad. How many people did the deadly Covid kill in the end?

About 22.

Twenty-two? Dad, be serious. That's not a pandemic.

Don't be a clever dick, son. Thousands could have died if hadn't gone early and gone hard, if we hadn't paralysed the country. And printed our own money.

Did we print our own money? What did we do with it? How much was it worth?

Not much, I'm afraid. But it didn't matter. The Chinese paid off our national debt when we sold them the Auckland and Tauranga Harbours. Bloody great deal, son.

Dad, that's your Huawei phone ringing. You'd better take it.

You're right. You have a good day at school.

There's no school today, dad. It's a holiday. It's Ardern Day, remember?

- Businessman Barry Colman is the former publisher of the National Business Review.