A year this week since Delta arrived. I hesitate to mention it, given I'm over Covid and have been for ages.

I note they still publish the numbers each day. Lord knows why, does anyone really care?

I also note in reading a bit about this year since Delta and yet more lockdowns arrived, that various people doing various studies about what we know and don’t know about the virus, still don’t seem to know a lot about it.

We don’t know where it came from, for example. A couple of recent reports seem to agree Covid came out of the market in Wuhan, but nothing really concrete.

Long Covid is an issue potentially to plague us for a while. Michael Baker still pops up far too often with his forecasts of yet more doom.

I also note we remain hopelessly behind the rest of the world because of fear. We have absurd rules around masks that never really made sense and make even less sense now and we are still seemingly forever in Orange.

The uptake of the booster was a joke. The second booster is an even bigger joke.

I sort of feel vindicated about my prediction that, ultimately, like most viruses, Covid would morph into something more innocuous. And so, it has proven to be.

But the biggest reaction I tend to have when I think of Covid is the ongoing damage. Not to our health, but to our country and economy.

The Reserve Bank yesterday upped interest rates because they too became so driven by fear and panic, they printed money in a way we have never seen and I pray will never see again. The Government ran us towards a fiscal position we won't even begin to pay off in our lifetime.

The fear to common sense ratio was off the scale. Here we are in a winter of discontent in a complete mess.

Tourism that hasn’t recovered, planes that are cancelled, migrants that aren't arriving, New Zealanders that are leaving, jobs that are unfilled, NCEA credits we are giving away because no one goes to school, and violence from kids who didn’t go to school so decided their future was driving cars through windows.

It's quite the list, isn't it?

Plus, we have a hospital system that was not and still isn't properly prepped for an outbreak.

A year on since Delta, not really a lot to be proud of. No wonder the Government are refusing a review.