Covid-19 Delta outbreak: Barry Soper - Auckland businesses must be allowed to open now

OPINION:

Talk to any business in Auckland and they'd open their doors in a flash. That's if they can afford to, and of course many of them can't.

For Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to say those doors will stay closed until Wednesday next week "which will give businesses time to prepare" just goes to show how little she understands about business.

They've had almost three months of locked doors to prepare, and from the many I've spoken to on the other side of their misted doors, they're itching to let the fresh air in.

Drive south of Mercer (although you are not allowed to without an exemption) and the shopkeepers will have dusted off the counters from tomorrow as they move to the second step on the Government's map.

Aucklanders will for the next week have to continue having their picnics with no more than one other household to allow the decision last week to let senior kids go back to school to spud in, which is what Ardern now seems to be saying. What difference that's going to make is difficult to fathom.

Does it mean that if case numbers are rising in the meantime because of schools opening then the stop sign will be reapplied?

Furrowing her brow and cupping her chin to show how deeply she cares, Ardern says there's not a moment in a day that she's not thinking about how they can ease the pressure in Auckland and how they can improve the situation as quickly as possible.

It's easy. Let the retail sector get back to business now.

Look across the ditch and see what's going on there and consider what's going on in Auckland, where 81 per cent of citizens are now double jabbed and where just three people are in intensive care.

Fifteen hundred Aussies flew home to Sydney and Melbourne yesterday from around the world without having to isolate and in environments where vaccinations don't come close to Auckland's.

They had been doubled jabbed and tested negative before their flights and arrived with their vaccination certificates - something we're not going to be able to get until the end of the month at the earliest.

Yeah well, they have their ways of doing things and we have ours, and ours is called control.

"We've always carved our own path and had our own plan," Ardern says.

We're waiting Prime Minister!