The thing with pre-writing blogs is that you don’t take into account external events that may impact the topic you’d set aside for the week. My original blog that was due to go up today was my top 5 suggestions of grabbing a bite in Auckland. However, clearly, no one is going to be eating out for the next 4-weeks, so in a way that would have been adding salt to the wound. I will release that blog once New Zealand has come out of alert 4 and out of a lockdown. I don’t claim to be a big blogger with thousands of views, but if one person reads that blog and heads to any one of those restaurants once we go back to normal, I’m sure they will thank you profusely. Instead, I’ve quickly whipped up a more realistic blog for this week, and have stuck to that as the title because I don’t think there’s anything else I’d want to title it.

This has been a very interesting week full of emotions. The Covid-19 outbreak has been doing the rounds, since December I’d like to say. Health officials only really caught on to the spread around January, when it was still somewhat low and not necessarily on everyone’s radar. February somehow zoomed by and then came March. It felt like this was unstoppable. Each week was so different from the other, and with the number of infected rising and reports on deaths rising, it felt like we’d lived the span of a year in the one week.

Very soon, it was evident that in New Zealand we had to shift to a new mindset altogether. Everything is uncertain at the moment. Everyone needs to react and respond as the situation evolves whether that means going into work from home mode (which currently everyone is doing) or finding new hobbies, or upskilling yourself. More than anything, if you are one of the lucky Appreciate that you have a job, and it’s not just you who’s job may be on the line. Each and everyone is on the same boat. Sure, there are some industries that are more affected than the others, but the reality remains the same.

Our PM, Jacinda Ardern, announced the alert system and shortly after being on alert level 3 for a couple of days, announced that we’d move to alert level 4 in our attempt to stop the spread. Alert level 4 means we are in a lockdown for 4 weeks. This is the first time I’ve been in a lockdown. I’ve previously worked from home when I was a contractor, but that was so different, from learning and adjusting to working full-time from home. Can I just take a minute to appreciate the amazing leader that we have as our Prime Minister. What makes her stand out for me amongst the other PMs that we’ve had, is her empathy. She gives the nation the reassurance that we are all in this together and has with such courage led a nation through a terror attack, a volcanic eruption and now a pandemic.

In this time, as we all adjust to a new normal, all I’d like to say is just be kind to each other, from you know 2metres apart. Some may be struggling with their mental health, whilst others may have other issues that you just won’t see on the surface. It wouldn’t kill you to be nice.

Until next time,

MiliG