Kāpiti mayor K Gurunathan writes about the need to stay focused as lockdown level lowering looms.
The Prime Minister's announcement on Monday is a welcoming signal that there is light at the end of the tunnel. But it has come with a clear message.
To reach that end of the tunnel the country needs to continue the discipline we had shown in the past three weeks of lockdown. Isolation - stay inside your bubble. Do this mostly by being at home and, when in the community, keep to the 2m separation rule. Personal hygiene - wash your hands frequently.
The lockdown has been extended by a week to be followed by a two week drop to a level 3 alert and then a review.
From frontline essential workers to the ordinary Kiwi the country had responded well to the lockdown and the results of their discipline and sacrifice has flatlined the impact of this Corvid-19 virus.
The Prime Minister and government have made a difficult choice.
The lockdown has created a huge pent-up energy shaped by the sheer physical and mental isolation, as well as the fear of a massive economic collapse caused by business failures and unemployment.
A staged and tightly controlled release of this pent-up pressure is what is necessary in a situation where any sudden increase in unfettered social movement and freedom will create instant highways for the spread of the virus. And force the backward imposition of a further lockdown.
The banking sector agree a return to lockdown will cause a greater negative economic impact and the health experts agree it will cause more deaths.
It will deal a significant damage to the national psyche.
If there is one thing I have kept referring to in my columns, as this crisis unfolded over the weeks, is the innate Kiwi character. It is here that this battle against this virus will be won or lost. The notion of sacrificing the needs of the self for the common good. There is a deeply embedded egalitarianism in the national psyche.
On Monday night TV1 I heard sociologist Dr Paul Spoonley respond to Paul (Lazarus) Henry's question on the national psyche. Dr Spoonley said he was surprised at the huge public response during the lockdown to the PM's call to stay in their bubbles. "They rallied around the flag" are the exact words he used. He was absolutely right. It was a national response to a threat to the country.
In this context, the timing of the PM's decision on Monday was fortuitous.
We are in the run-up to Anzac Day. And Jacinda Ardern referred to that Anzac spirit during her announcement.
An Anzac Day dawn ceremony in Paraparaumu a few years ago.
Stressing the critical need for continued vigilance and discipline and the enormous cost we will face as a nation if we fail to do so.
She did not overplay it, but it was there, that link to our history, that reference to the dark heart-wrenching war years when the country lost thousands of lives.
Sacrificed for a greater cause. From 1996, when I started with the Kāpiti Observer, I have attended every Anzac Day commemoration.
I have watched it grow both in numbers attending and in the depth of the understanding of what it means to the national psyche of this small but amazingly creative nation.
The word "kindness" is a value that the Prime Minister has repeatedly spoon-fed us to make us realise that the egalitarianism that's embedded in us springs from this simple human value.
For the first time this Anzac Day I will not be able to attend a commemoration gathering. None of us will.
Covid-19 may be an invisible enemy but we have our own invisible weapon and protection against it. The spirit of Anzac Day with a generous sprinkling of kindness.
Self sacrifice for the common good. We need to keep the discipline that we have already shown to win this war.
