Lockdown returns

Last night I woke up to this emergency alert:

Auckland returned to lockdown alert level 3 since this noon: 12 noon on Wednesday 12 August. The rest of New Zealand moved to alert level 2.

I was shocked because last night I went to sleep planning to make the most of today, which I took off from work for working last Sunday. I wasn’t following news and had no idea of events leading up to this second lockdown. So having to wake up in the middle of my sleep to the emergency beeper of my phone freaked me out.

We decided in the night that we are not going to send our son to school. We woke up and found that schools are closed for the rest of the week anyway.

I also woke up to see the appaling trollies in this tweet:

There are already long lines at Auckland supermarkets.

The below images are from inside the Grey Lynn countdown, lines outside Mt Eden Countdown, and about 200 people wrap around the Countdown building on Quay Street.

More Covid-19 updates here: https://t.co/jR6f6LmJCW pic.twitter.com/Bi0xrJ6ZsR

— RNZ (@radionz) August 11, 2020

 and the nonsensical claims of the leader of the opposition.

It took me a few hours to get over all this and come to terms with the situation. I feel much better compared to when I woke up.

It sucks to have to lose the freedom to move freely, but there is inevitably another wave of virus infections. I told myself to accept the reality and stick to the usual stuff that we have accustomed so far in 2020: stay home as much as possible, maintain physical distance when outside, wash hands regularly.

As always, I feel lucky to be living in Auckland and beautiful New Zealand. I believe in my team of 5 million country people. We are going to do it again. It wasn’t a problem getting food and essentials even during level 4 lockdown, so not worried about toilet paper in level 3 lockdown that we are in now. Supermarket visit can certainly wait.

I chose to keep my positive habits. I ate reasonably well today, did the second of my three weekly workouts (I am yet to miss a week of workouts this year), setup Sharesies to get started with long-term investing, spoke to my mum on an important family matter and spoke to a close friend. Now I am looking forward to tomorrow, and eventually getting over this lockdown. Just like we did a little over a hundred days ago.

This tweet from Giapo is timely and sums up my feelings:

While we are always grateful, sometimes expressing our feelings can be beneficial. Inspired by our friends at THE CAKER pic.twitter.com/KTV7sV8JVN

— Giapo (@Giapo) August 11, 2020