A Lull In The Madness
Mar. 16th, 2022 12:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
msconductSo I've been at the beach for a couple of weeks. Did I miss anything?
Ahahahahaha.
I knew when I left that I was going to be holidaying in the middle of New Zealand's Omicron surge. I didn't, however, expect to come home to World War III. That's too awful to talk about, so I'm going to talk about beautiful Waiheke Island and post some lovely soothing photos instead instead. Hopefully we can all breathe out and forget about the current state of the world for a few minutes.
New Zealand has avoided a large Covid breakout ever since the start of the pandemic, not that that was difficult a lot of the time here as because of the measures we took we had many months with no Covid at all. However, that was a state of affairs never intended to last forever, and it didn't. We did manage to pretty much get rid of Delta, but Omicron came hard on its heels and we knew there was no avoiding it this time. Nor did we want to: because we've held Covid at bay for so long, we were able to face Omicron with a population 97% double vaccinated and 30% (now 75%) boosted. This was a very different situation from facing Alpha in 2020 with no vaccines: it was pretty much as good as we were going to get, and it was time to open the doors.
Well, when I say open the doors, I don't mean me. Because I have an autoimmune condition, and also because I'd really rather avoid killing my high-risk-group mother, I've been rigorously avoiding Covid the entire time and I see no reason to stop now. Going away as Omicron surged therefore felt a tad on the insane side. However, we'd booked the holiday home on Waiheke Island we always go to a year ago and there were no refunds. Besides, we really needed a break as we hadn't had any time off since our beach holiday the previous February.
We decided to go but to be careful: normally we eat out twice a day, because I cook all year and a holiday is definitely not about that, but this year we went (wearing N95s) only to places that had expansive outdoor areas and also ate at home some of the time. (No cooking, though. Cheese, mostly. Mmm, cheese.) Going to Waiheke is about the safest trip you could make Covid-wise, as you drive onto the car ferry and stay in your car. We rent an entire house so didn't have to mingle with anyone. And our favourite holiday activities of swimming and reading were thankfully unaffected.
It was wonderful. My stress levels reset to a lower level than they'd been at for a very long time. And our precautions worked: we didn't get Covid.
Now we're back on the mainland and New Zealand is approaching the peak of the Omicron surge. In a way we're lucky getting Omicron way after the rest of the world, as the BA.1 strain was quickly outcompeted by BA.2, so we've managed to squish all of Omicron into one wave instead of having a BA.2 wave as a special treat to look forward to like everyone else. So far, we're not doing too badly. We're not used to Covid deaths here as we've had so few, and Omicron has so far doubled the total number of pandemic deaths to 102, which we're not particularly happy about. However, the high vaccination rate is doing its work: over the entire pandemic, our total hospitalisation rate is 0.73% of cases, and the total death rate is 0.03% of cases. Globally, we're in the bottom handful of countries for deaths per million. Losing people now is a shock, but we know that compared to most countries we're incredibly fortunate.
And now, the soothing pictures!
The holiday house we rent isn't exactly the pinnacle of luxury. It was built on the cheap decades ago and has been going downhill every since. The beds are so awful I bring my own mattress. But we keep coming back because this is the view from the living room:
My God, there's another person on the beach! The nerve! (The fact that this counts as a crowded beach in New Zealand is why I wasn't worried about getting Covid while swimming.)
When we weren't reading or staring aimlessly out the window at the Pacific, we were finding nice safe restaurants. This was a new one this year: building it during Covid meant they really got it when it came to safe outdoor spaces. I'd say it was a lovely setting, but all of Waiheke looks like this.
We got to eat amazing food...
...drink Waiheke's famous red wine...
...and look at Auckland way off in the distance and be happy we weren't there.
We heard today that we will be letting in tourists soon for the first time since April 2020. That's going to be very, very strange. In the before times, Lonely Planet listed Waiheke as their number two global destination (bastards!) and it was way too popular. I've got used to having Waiheke all to myself now, and I kinda like it. In fact, I think I've made a terrible mistake here. If you've been looking at these pictures and dusting off your passport, I need to warn you now that none of the pictures are in fact accurate. It's all filters. Yes, filters. And Photoshop! I have definitely Photoshopped out the, um, oil and old tyres and rusty barbed wire that are all over the beach. So you absolutely wouldn't want to come here. Please?
Ahahahahaha.
I knew when I left that I was going to be holidaying in the middle of New Zealand's Omicron surge. I didn't, however, expect to come home to World War III. That's too awful to talk about, so I'm going to talk about beautiful Waiheke Island and post some lovely soothing photos instead instead. Hopefully we can all breathe out and forget about the current state of the world for a few minutes.
New Zealand has avoided a large Covid breakout ever since the start of the pandemic, not that that was difficult a lot of the time here as because of the measures we took we had many months with no Covid at all. However, that was a state of affairs never intended to last forever, and it didn't. We did manage to pretty much get rid of Delta, but Omicron came hard on its heels and we knew there was no avoiding it this time. Nor did we want to: because we've held Covid at bay for so long, we were able to face Omicron with a population 97% double vaccinated and 30% (now 75%) boosted. This was a very different situation from facing Alpha in 2020 with no vaccines: it was pretty much as good as we were going to get, and it was time to open the doors.
Well, when I say open the doors, I don't mean me. Because I have an autoimmune condition, and also because I'd really rather avoid killing my high-risk-group mother, I've been rigorously avoiding Covid the entire time and I see no reason to stop now. Going away as Omicron surged therefore felt a tad on the insane side. However, we'd booked the holiday home on Waiheke Island we always go to a year ago and there were no refunds. Besides, we really needed a break as we hadn't had any time off since our beach holiday the previous February.
We decided to go but to be careful: normally we eat out twice a day, because I cook all year and a holiday is definitely not about that, but this year we went (wearing N95s) only to places that had expansive outdoor areas and also ate at home some of the time. (No cooking, though. Cheese, mostly. Mmm, cheese.) Going to Waiheke is about the safest trip you could make Covid-wise, as you drive onto the car ferry and stay in your car. We rent an entire house so didn't have to mingle with anyone. And our favourite holiday activities of swimming and reading were thankfully unaffected.
It was wonderful. My stress levels reset to a lower level than they'd been at for a very long time. And our precautions worked: we didn't get Covid.
Now we're back on the mainland and New Zealand is approaching the peak of the Omicron surge. In a way we're lucky getting Omicron way after the rest of the world, as the BA.1 strain was quickly outcompeted by BA.2, so we've managed to squish all of Omicron into one wave instead of having a BA.2 wave as a special treat to look forward to like everyone else. So far, we're not doing too badly. We're not used to Covid deaths here as we've had so few, and Omicron has so far doubled the total number of pandemic deaths to 102, which we're not particularly happy about. However, the high vaccination rate is doing its work: over the entire pandemic, our total hospitalisation rate is 0.73% of cases, and the total death rate is 0.03% of cases. Globally, we're in the bottom handful of countries for deaths per million. Losing people now is a shock, but we know that compared to most countries we're incredibly fortunate.
And now, the soothing pictures!
The holiday house we rent isn't exactly the pinnacle of luxury. It was built on the cheap decades ago and has been going downhill every since. The beds are so awful I bring my own mattress. But we keep coming back because this is the view from the living room:
My God, there's another person on the beach! The nerve! (The fact that this counts as a crowded beach in New Zealand is why I wasn't worried about getting Covid while swimming.)
When we weren't reading or staring aimlessly out the window at the Pacific, we were finding nice safe restaurants. This was a new one this year: building it during Covid meant they really got it when it came to safe outdoor spaces. I'd say it was a lovely setting, but all of Waiheke looks like this.
We got to eat amazing food...
...drink Waiheke's famous red wine...
...and look at Auckland way off in the distance and be happy we weren't there.
We heard today that we will be letting in tourists soon for the first time since April 2020. That's going to be very, very strange. In the before times, Lonely Planet listed Waiheke as their number two global destination (bastards!) and it was way too popular. I've got used to having Waiheke all to myself now, and I kinda like it. In fact, I think I've made a terrible mistake here. If you've been looking at these pictures and dusting off your passport, I need to warn you now that none of the pictures are in fact accurate. It's all filters. Yes, filters. And Photoshop! I have definitely Photoshopped out the, um, oil and old tyres and rusty barbed wire that are all over the beach. So you absolutely wouldn't want to come here. Please?
no subject
Date: 2022-03-15 03:24 pm (UTC)We're going to get slammed here in Texas since no one is wearing a mask. Just hoping to get to Seattle and back next week before the new variant gets here. It is going to be close.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-15 10:16 pm (UTC)Yes, I hope you get under the wire and safely get back home before it hits. BA.2 is even more insanely infectious. However, one bright spot: I heard yesterday from someone that their grandchild's teacher told the class they could take their masks off (WHAT?!?). Everyone did but the grandchild, and the grandchild was the only one in their entire class who escaped infection. So at least masks seem to still work.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-15 10:29 pm (UTC)I've got better masks now than I used to so it should help regardless.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-17 02:56 am (UTC)