So the announcement that all Covid-19 requirements have finally been removed by the Government brought me no particular joy.  

For me, the beginning of the end was when the lockdown in Auckland was finally lifted after months.

Following increasingly absurd and farcical and unenforceable rules, in what seemed to be a Government bid to force the refuseniks to get vaccinated to reach an arbitrary target, set from memory, by the New Zealand Herald.

I knew people who were never, ever, ever going to be vaccinated. They and their children had never had any contact with the public health system, with welfare officers, with any government agency.

They took no dull or sickness benefit, they lived off the grid and they didn't ask for anything from the Government other than to be left alone.

We could still be in lockdown and they wouldn't be vaccinated. Then there were others of the school of Novak Djokovic. The sort of people who calibrate in the most forensic detail what goes into their body.

The questions they had about the vaccine weren't being answered by authorities.

Then there were the absolute tits who were quite happy to pump in the Botox, the fillers, and the class A drugs. But yeah, nah, it's not really for me. You just don't know it's unproven.

And then you get right into the Woo Woo territory where people think the vaccine introduces a chip or a bar code into the person being vaccinated and becomes a foot soldier for the army.

So that was then. This is now.

No more seven day mandatory isolation. No wearing of face masks for visitors to health facilities, although what I have taken from that mad and ridiculous time was ‘If you have a cold. If you have the flu, if you are unwell, stay away. If you must go out and get supplies wear a face mask.’