Frustration in Auckland has been rising and the cabinet would have been aware it risked losing the crowd<\/p>\n
One of the many quotes attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte that he probably never said, was that he preferred his generals lucky, rather than able. When it\u2019s a matter of life and death, \u201cgive me lucky generals,\u201d he\u2019s reputed to have pleaded.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a view that New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern echoed this week when she announced that Auckland \u2013 home to about a third of all New Zealanders \u2013 was moving out of the strict level 4 lockdown to level 3<\/a>. Replace \u201cgenerals\u201d with \u201cpolicy\u201d and you get a pretty accurate sense of cabinet\u2019s big call this week. In a country that has essentially tattooed \u201cgo hard, go early\u201d on to one collective arm and \u201cstay home, stay safe\u201d on to the other, the decision to let about 300,000 people go back to their places of work when Auckland\u2019s still getting 15-30 cases a day in the community is a turning point in the government\u2019s approach to this pandemic. Both in public health terms and politically. A year ago, public opinion wouldn\u2019t have worn such faith in \u201clucky generals\u201d. But that was a year ago.<\/p>\n