Not as we know it

There have been 216 million recorded cases of Covid now around the world, and four and a half million deaths. 

We're in the lounge at home. Alex has gone to bed. Joe is looking at his phone and Maggie is reading a book. She is unwittingly channelling the 80s. Dyed black hair and a black jacket with patches safety pinned to it and chains around her neck including an old metal key. Old blue jeans ripped across both knees. It's warm and quiet. It is funny how writing has a sound. If I am to dive into the sound of typing, oh I dunno, the closest I can think of, is a very quiet, very scatty group of horses. Kind of determined when they're moving but sporadic. 

it's Sunday night and we're in lockdown again. Two Tuesdays ago there was a community case and that midnight the whole country went into Level 4 lockdown. No school or work. Just supermarkets and chemists and going out for the daily walks. Maggie walked 12 kilometres  today and saw various people on the way. There was a furore in the media especially overseas about going into lockdown over one case. It was only 12 days ago and now it's 453 cases. 15 in Wellington and the rest in Auckland. 

A Covid-19 outbreak in Fiji started in April, there's been 45,000 cases of since, 19000 of them active. The total population is 903,000 and there have been 530 deaths. There are news reports on many days of another village it has reached. 

On this coming Tuesday everyone south of Auckland is moving to level 3, which doesn't mean much difference except the children of essential workers can go back to school and a few more shops open. Funerals and weddings can happen but only with 10 people or less. Auckland and north stays at level 4. Auckland and north will be an cut off because no one can move between levels.

Vaccinations are being rolled out. Two million people have had at least one dose. One million have had two doses and are fully vaccinated. Joe has had one shot. The kids and I get our first in a coupe of weeks. There's talk of a possible need for booster shots. The delta variant is worse than the one before. More contagious, deadlier. There are groups of people who suffer long Covid where the effects are lasting for months and months and everything has changed for these people, fatigue and pain and brain fog. An epidemiologist, Michael Baker said we can't expect to go back to Level 1 as we know it. 

I'm the only one left up now. I can't sleep at night and can't wake early in the morning.