My brother has served his time at MIQ and is now back home. He gave it a solid 8/10 for what it was.
The good bits he found were the staff, he found the NZ Defence Force well organised and helpful.
Other positives were the food, which he said wasn’t bad. For 14 days in 30 square metres his room was good too, the testing was efficient, results got back fast. There was good communication, albeit slightly alarming when a loud speaker announcement comes on stating no one can leave their room as there’s been a positive case or two discovered at the Hotel and it needs a deep clean.
To be honest though he said of all the travelling he’d done through the US prior to his arrival back home, nowhere did he fear catching Covid more, than in MIQ. Too many people in close proximity, too many variables - and as with all things involving human nature, you can have all the instructions, signs and posters you want, if someone chooses to ignore them and jump in a lift with you, or not wear their mask, you’re at the behest of their stupidity.
He managed to pass the time with exercising, (he lost 4 kilos), he skipped alcohol, snacking and meat, and went vego for his time in there, drank lots of water, got 8 hours sleep every night. He thinks he’s left in better shape than he went in. There was a lot of reading, working and listening to podcasts.. when he had WiFi. That was one of the negatives. Hotels struggle to cope with the load on the WiFi from so many guests using it at once so there were whole chunks of time that there was literally no WiFi, which is not great when you’re stuck in your room, and especially if you need to work.
So there were a few kinks, but overall he said a positive experience. And one he says he’d happily do again. I know. What? Seriously, he says he values travel that much, that if they keep the border shut, he wouldn't let quarantine put him off.
Which leads me to the border and how long it’s staying shut.
The government has said not to expect the border to open for the rest of this year. We seemingly have accepted that, I’ve seen very little opposition to it, I think we have become happy with being isolated. We have become obsessed with feeling ‘safe’.
It’s not real though, in a long term capacity. As the vaccine rolls out everywhere else and pockets of the world start opening up consistently for longer periods of time, and safely so, our isolationism may start to bite. It’s already biting economically, but will we start to feel a bit stir crazy on a personal level? Will it feel like some kind of self imposed global lockdown, where the rest of the world moves but we still don’t? At what point does the opposition to this approach start? We have up until now been complacent about having a ‘closed’ sign above our door, how much longer will this last do you reckon?
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