It’s taken some by surprise to see the Government is not fronting up for that 1 pm press conference today.

I’m sure plenty of people will accuse ministers and the PM of trying to hide away from a bad news week.

But, on balance, I like this.

We need to dial back on these 1 pm press conferences unless they’re absolutely necessary.

The new Premier of NSW Dominic Perrottet has done it. He scrapped them yesterday.

His predecessor Gladys Berejiklian scaled them right back about a month ago. 

And even we have a bit: we haven’t had them on Saturdays for a while now and the world hasn’t ended.

It’s not like the government won’t be held to account when necessary.

To be fair – apart from Jacinda herself – every other Covid minister turns up for interviews on the regular.

I think we need to move on from fixating on the Covid case numbers.

Yes, of course, this outbreak is the biggest thing happening to the country right now.

But we are so obsessed with Covid and where it’s popping up that I think we are losing a sense of proportion.

There are other really big things going on that are barely getting any airtime.

For example, the Three Waters reform, which could turn into a Government asset grab that affects every single council in this country.

We are so irrational about Covid right now that there are people in the South Island calling for the entire place to be locked off from the North Island and not even vaguely aware of nuts that is. 

They’re prepared to starve their tourism and associated businesses of every single North Island traveller just because there are a smattering of cases outside of the Auckland border in Waikato.

The more rational alternative would be to just go out and get the jab.

Look at Waiheke: doing the same, banning mainland Aucklanders from going to the island but not banning islanders from travelling to and from Auckland.  It’s irrational because it’s a completely flawed plan. Waiheke residents are not immune to catching covid and taking it back to Waiheke. Again, they’re starving the local businesses instead of just getting the jab.

Honestly, the fewer 1 pm press conferences we have – the more we start to unlock ourselves from the Covid fear – the better.