COVID - 19 Lockdown Minus 2 - March 24 2019

"This is history.
It’s that simple. Before you nod and click on to the next article, just take a quick moment. Take a few seconds to let it sink in. What you decide to do in the next few days, weeks and months is something that will become family history. It is something that academics will study. And this isn’t just in general terms. I am talking about what you choose to do tomorrow, or next week.
What some of you decide to do tomorrow could be something that a great-grandchild asks about. It could be what schoolchildren learn about in a hundred years. Our voices and thoughts, our hopes and expectations and our petty arguments will be on a wall in Te Papa, along with those dank memes we’re all posting."
This comment rolled through on my Facebook feed yesterday from The Spinoff and it made me think. This IS history - maybe my great-grandchild might like to know what we did get up to during the first national emergency in my lifetime. (I am 61; one of those much maligned "boomers".)
Yesterday was momentous. Alan and I had sat and eaten lunch. I'd watched the Director General of Health report that the Covid-19 victims now numbered 102. No-one has yet died. He hinted that there was more to come, so I thought I'd wait for the Prime Minister's post-cabinet debrief.....and I waited. About 1:45pm Jacinda Ardern announced that immediately, the country had transitioned to Alert Level 3. Anywhere people could meet, such as bars, restaurants and gyms, was now closed. From 24 March, schools would be closed and from midnight on 25 March, the whole country would be in lockdown at Alert Level 4. Only essential workers would be able to move around to work in essential businesses to keep us all safe and to "flatten the curve" to stamp out this disease.
We're ok - we have food in the cupboard and most things we need. Our son and his partner have lost their jobs (temporarily, I hope) from Thursday. They will get a wage subsidy and are canny enough to have money in the bank. Understandably, they are very worried about us and think we are foolhardy for planning a trip to the supermarket "unnecessarily" for parmesan cheese. Those over 70 - my husband recently recovered from shingles - and those with health issues - me - have been under house arrest since the weekend and actually, we're getting a bit low on milk. 
It's almost as if nature wanted her say too. Overnight it felt as if a Kaikoura squall went through sunny Motueka to warn us. The wind howled, it rained, everything rattled. This morning the jumpers went on. Winter has us in her sights. The next few weeks will see change like we've never seen before.

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