August 17th seemed a fairly innocuous day. I had marking to complete, a class was doing a test and I had leftovers for lunch. Unbeknown to most of the population, however, there was a lurking virus among us. It was inevitable, the Delta strain was the most virulent mutation yet, but it only takes one to unleash the jinx upon us.

Around 3pm there was an announcement of a case of COVID-19 in the community.

An email was sent to all staff asked us all to make sure we take our work laptops home with us, just in case.

I stopped by the supermarket on the way home to get myself a broccoli to include with dinner, around 4pm.

Dinner was being served around 6pm, when the announcement to go to Level 4 was being made.

And thus, the panic buying began.

Our Government had mentioned already that if the Delta variant was discovered in the community then it was probable that Level 4 would be implemented. This likely came about because there was a visitor from Sydney who had the Delta Variant (but I think had received one dose of the vaccine) who didn’t spread it to anyone. With the transmission rate of Delta between double and triple that of the previous variants I believe that the correct decision was made as our hospital system wont be able to cope with an outbreak.

As of 11:59pm on August 17, we are at Level 4. Auckland and the Coromandel will be there for seven days whereas the rest of the country will be for three days. The number of contacts who have tested positive continues to grow, and with one contact being a nurse and another a teacher, its looking likely that the number will continue to grow as more and more contacts are tested. Only time will tell how long we will be in lockdown, but I’m sure we’ll kick COVID out of the country this time too!