I feel for the South Island, with their gradual waking up to the fact that Delta is real. 

A couple of weeks ago I said to my sister, who lives in Christchurch, when she called me en-route from her pilates class to her café lunch, before probably going on to the hairdresser, that she was living in a parallel universe. I told her I figured the South Island was where the whole of NZ was 11 weeks ago, when we thought Delta was just a “somewhere else” problem. We smugly watched from the comfort of our crowded cafes as chaos unfolded across the Tasman and we thought – oh lucky us, it’s not real for us here. 

And then boom, there it was. 

And how our lives have changed. 

I told her it would show up on her doorstep, it was a matter of when not if. She was confident it wouldn’t and that they’d all be so well vaccinated by the time it did, that it’d be no worries. 

And then wham. Yesterday’s news of two positive cases in the city. 

I called her and suggested she go get her hair done and have her last café coffee. But she was relaxed, confident they wouldn’t be locked down, confident it would be a non-event. I admired her positivity and at the same time resented how cynical and deflated we’ve become in Auckland. That sort of upbeat laissez-faire approach to life she was exhibiting, has been missing in action in the city of sails.  

Aucklanders are instead like brow beaten cave dwellers living in the dark, fear and rule bound, glumly crawling around with our regrowth and our chipped nails and our takeaways, wondering when we’ll ever get to a traffic light. 

My sister said she refused to subscribe to the fear, or run around like a headless chicken buying up toilet paper. 

In fact, she was so confident there’d be no lockdown that she said she was going to make restaurant bookings. 

She refused to go to the supermarket to join a queue and in the end, she was right not to panic. 

But I am hopeful it’s a wake-up call for those who may still be on the fence regards vaccinating. 

Nothing spurs people on like some positive community cases, and perhaps this focusses the mind for South Islanders that they may not be completely immune from this. 

I do think the blame and finger pointing is futile here though – those who’re saying ‘bloody Aucklanders’ - Let’s be frank, Delta was always going to make its way around the place. These two travellers had exemptions to travel, and had provided negative tests 

How is that Auckland's fault? There is an argument for domestic vaccine passports, especially for those leaving the centre of an outbreak. Why that’s not already in place to protect South Islanders and the rest of the country is beyond me.  

I imagine it’ll eventually come into play – but as we’ve come to expect with this government, unfortunately, not in time.