No it wasn’t.

We were slow to close the border. It wasn’t until Pacifica cancelled themselves that Ardern gave up on the look at me anniversary of the Christchurch shootings. The hard and early mantra was simply self serving propaganda.

It was only once it was let in, after receiving the longest warning afforded to anyone – by having the worlds largest moat around us, that Ardern then locked us down into level 4 .

This lead to the little dance moment, when community transmission hit zero. We were labelled the magical country and Ardern got a big pat on the back from the voters. The elimination had worked and for the first time since the inception of MMP, a party could rule alone. Adern saved us all. Or did she?

Rather than preparing for the eventual outbreak that wasn’t stoppable with lock downs. (What we called holding back the tide here at Planet B). The government went around patting themselves on the back and focusing on hugely unpopular new laws and regulations.

Money set aside for when the virus arrived again was frittered away on pet projects, that all had nothing to do with COVID.

The vaccine roll out that was ultimately to provide freedom, was the bottom of the OECD in its distribution. Dead last for most of the time.

Our border was leaking and even if they had done a far better job, it was always going to arrive. Elimination was just a fanciful dream from half baked epidemiologists like Michael Baker and the dreamer David Skegg.

Have we even officially given up on elimination yet?

It would seem we have, but has Ardern sung her Careless Whispers yet. Or is she secretly hoping she can dance again?

As the country bounces around in different levels of lockdown. Auckland’s may learn how much longer (than the 8 weeks so far) that we are going to be trapped in the city, or if we can use our friends toilets when we visit one of our bubbles.

So whilst articles are being written with head lines such as, “Covid 19 Delta outbreak: The week the Government’s world-beating Covid response lost its way” I am reminded of the saying “it’s not how you drive it’s how you arrive.”

And now we have arrived at the inevitable destination COVID, we can see that how you drive is important.

Driving with your eyes looking everywhere but the road ahead is where we are.

Marketing the water asset theft called 3 Waters has been the focus of the government over increasing ICU capacity.

Everything COVID had been thrown in the she’ll be right department.

Done my little dance job done was obviously the only thing on Arderns mind.

Oh how the wheels have fallen off that ride called elimination. What ride are we going to be put on today?