It's time to take one for the team, New Zealand.

Thousands are rushing to be tested and vaccinated after notification of an 'outbreak' of Covid-Delta in New Zealand. For many, it seems that a simple sniffle has prompted them into the test and jab protocols.

As was to be expected, PM Ardern is taking the Cov-D as an opportunity to prop up her branding in front of her seemingly compliant team of five million.

This team mentality we constantly harp on about in New Zealand concerns me. We are not a team. We haven't been a team since Ardern's wokies brutally initiated their campaign of terror against every conservative in New Zealand using cancel culture, public shaming, gaslighting en masse, and outright ad hominem attacks on those who dared to stand their ground.

But if we are a team, and let's for a moment pretend that we are, then should we not be prepared to 'take one for the team' in true kiwi style? Although exact figures are apparently difficult to calculate, WHO data estimates that all variant types (including Delta) collectively have a fatality rate of 2.09% of confirmed cases. That's confirmed cases, not population. Our Ministry of  Health data says we've had only 26 deaths since this began 18 months ago, out of a total of 2900 confirmed cases. Point eight nine percent. Not bad, New Zealand.

All those years ago, when Governments sent their young men to fight their bloody wars they played a game of Russian Roulette with those lives. They gambled that some would live, and some would die. Some would be horribly scarred for life physically or emotionally. All of them were heroes. They took one for the team back home. We were always so quick to gamble with the lives of our menfolk. Why are we so hesitant to do the same with the whole population now, when the war has broken through the borders and is at the cities gates? Is it because the warriors include women and children? But we 'wimmin' have spent decades proving that we are worthy warrior opponents, haven't we? Are we not also 'team'? Can we not sacrifice as well as any man can? There's some pretty darn good odds in the health data, so most of us will make it and casualties of war will be few overall. I write not entirely with tongue in cheek, there's a bit of sincere perplexity in that question.

The UK and Europe have now adopted a 'learn to live with it' approach, which of course means 'develop herd immunity naturally'. People are being encouraged to shift their pandemic perspective and focus on avoiding severe illness and death instead of freaking out over infection numbers, which are harder to avoid. Countries that once held zero-infection ambitions are coming to terms with the idea that those pandemic policies are no longer workable.

As Heather du Plessis-Allan rightly points out in her opinion piece for the NZ Herald - "For many of us, the jab has been a mental milestone. Realising it changes little may be a huge disappointment. The truth is we can't maintain zero-Covid forever. We all know that. We're only delaying the inevitable by carrying on with it... So at some point Covid will come into New Zealand. We will be jabbed, there will be outbreaks, some people will die, some won't even know they're crook, most people will get a touch of something then get better. That will happen. We don't get to choose if it happens, we only get to choose when it happens."

God Bless you Heather. You've hit the nail right on it's rusty head with that one, love!