Andrew Dickens Afternoons

Well let’s start with the good news.  For all the griping about MIQ, I think we owe the system a debt of gratitude.  Without it there would have been no summer. Without it we would have rolled straight from a Delta surge into an Omicron tsunami.  MIQ bought us time. Which is what it's always designed to do. It was never created to keep Covid out forever because that really would be a hermit kingdom. In my eyes it’s all been about suppressing and mitigating the outbreaks so they fit within our meagre capacities. And that happened. While the community went down to just a dozen cases in the community a day, in MIQ Omicron surged to over 500 cases. But the border held firm until now and that's a good thing So, I’m glad that the people who were obsessed with opening up the border at the end of last year were not listened to.  So, let’s also hand it to summer. The good weather and the virtual absence of Covid meant money in the bank for struggling businesses.  The Mercury Bay Informer, published out of Whitianga, r