Covid 19 Delta outbreak: Mike Hosking - less of the fear, more of the hope, please

OPINION:

Now we have a sense of how many of us are booked in for a vaccine we can ask a couple of sensible questions.

First, how accurate is the count on the booking site? It currently sits at the highs 60s.

That's a good number, if you look at the highly vaccinated countries around the world, all at some point reached a level of hesitancy, the point where incentives or mandates or encouragement were brought in to finish the job off as best it can be finished.

At 68-ish per cent we have one of the highest participation rates in the world before we hit the hesitancy wall, that's a good sign.

So the accuracy questions come from the text and email I received over the weekend telling me about my second jab this week.

I am not getting a second jab this week, but the Government think I am and have me booked in.

They also have me booked in for the second jab I'm getting in November.

Upon getting my first jab I changed bookings based on my reading that eight to 12 weeks between vaccinations leads to maximum efficacy.

How many other people have more than one booking and therefore how many phantom bookings are artificially boosting the jab numbers?

Then we come to the startling lack of a plan. What's happening when I get my second jab?

The two most powerful emotions a government can engage the public with are fear and hope.

This Government has been superb on fear.

I will never forget the day the Prime Minister walked up to the pulpit of truth in the last lockdown when it had become apparent that the South Auckland outbreak at the time, the one with the gym visit and the KFC worker accused by the PM of poor behaviour when it was later revealed she had merely acted on incorrect government advice, the outbreak had led to no transmission, so it had become fairly obvious businesses were shuttered for no good reason other than government over-reaction.

Up strode the PM and blurted out in a way that could only be described as a massive case of over acting: "COVID KILLS."

The messaging has been so effective, a few still think that the 26 who originally died pre-vaccine is a stat worth re-quoting ad nauseum, almost as though the world hasn't moved on, hasn't got a vaccine, and hasn't worked out how to live with Covid.

It's been so effective some still think this lockdown, although brought about solely through ineptitude in terms of failing to prepare for the inevitable outbreak by not hiring enough contact tracers, not expanding health capacity and not getting enough vaccine at a time we actually need it, is to be defended.

Yes the lockdown this time was the right thing to do, only because it was the only thing to do.

But it was the only thing to do because preparation, foresight, planning and delivery fail this government in a way I have not seen in the modern political era.

But while all that fear has been spoon fed to the susceptible and vulnerable, nowhere is the hope to be seen.

The Skegg report alluded to it in the most vague fashion.

Some sort of reopening, at some point, once vaccines are rolled out.

What does that actually mean?

People respond to a challenge, they respond to aspiration, they respond to hope.

Why do we have no vaccine target? Skegg argues and the Government concurs because it gives people an out.

Why are we focused on what will be a minority? Of course some people won't get jabbed but that's on them.

The great question they haven't answered post-vaccine, whenever that is, is are we still locking down and in what form?

Would we have locked down to level 4 this time, if we had been 70 per cent jabbed, what about 80 per cent?

Would it have been level 3? Level 2? Or not at all?

How much are we prepared to live with Covid, when does the discussion start about not obsessing about cases, and focus more on hospitalisations and deaths?

The fear is everywhere, what we can't do, and why we can't do it.

It's an 18-month-old mindset, in a new world moving on fast without us.

My fear about the fear is this government doesn't like hope because it involves aspiration and promising stuff it might not be able to deliver.

Delivering fear is easy, we've lived it for 18 months.

If you look at the world now versus 18 months ago and look at us now versus 18 months ago, one is dramatically different and yet one isn't.

And the one that isn't is the one crippled by fear, not driven by hope.