Chai's Blog

Today in Auck­land, New Zealand, the Prime Min­is­ter announced that the fourth lock­down we entered into from 6 am last Sun­day (27th Feb­ru­ary) would be lift­ed at 6 am on the com­ing Sun­day (7th March).

I am cau­tious­ly rejoic­ing the news. This is the fourth lock­down since the main lock­down start­ed in March 2020. The sec­ond one after that, in August 2020, was sur­pris­ing; my phone got an emer­gency alert when I was sleep­ing, and that real­ly shocked me!

Two more mini lock­downs lat­er, I am now con­vinced that anoth­er lock­down could hit any­time! Even this cur­rent one, which is announced to be eased down in about 30 hours, can be pro­longed if we find even a sin­gle com­mu­ni­ty case between now and then. I think that’s a good thing. We have employed an elim­i­na­tion, not a mit­i­ga­tion strat­e­gy in this coun­try, and I love it! It is incon­ve­nient and is hard work, but it saves lives!

I have been in the for­tu­nate bunch of world pop­u­la­tion that isn’t affect­ed by Covid. I don’t take it for grant­ed. I have been able not just to sur­vive but thrive in the last 12 months since the world is infest­ed with Covid. More than I delib­er­ate­ly planned any­thing, I have been lucky!

From now on, I decid­ed not to take free­dom (from lock­downs) grant­ed. 

I am nei­ther opti­mistic nor pes­simistic. I plan my activ­i­ties while try­ing to be real­is­tic and assum­ing that lock­down can hit any­time, as I learned from the last two lock­downs.