Mike Hosking: Why did we celebrate the Covid five year anniversary?

Here was a headline to mark the day: "We aren't ready, the next pandemic is coming."  In that line of paranoia is everything that was wrong with the five year anniversary, if that’s the right word, of our first lockdown for Covid.  As two commissions have, or continue, to wade through any number of submissions, it's all a waste of time.  There are those who are determined to forecast doom and, as such, would do exactly the same next time as they did five years ago.  I noted Ashley Bloomfield popped up for a chat. He told us the bird flu is a worry, and he should have listened more. What's that actually mean? Listen more?  Does it lead to anything? Of course not. It’s a sop.  The epidemiologists who flooded our living rooms would unquestionably be no different in Covid 2.0 than they were with the original.  In fact, if anything should have come out of 2020 and lockdown it should have been we don’t mark anniversaries. We shouldn’t be allowed to interview either Hipkins, Bloomfield, or Ardern about Covid ever again. Hearing them whine is bad for your health. It is triggering.  One Covid report is already out. It was a reflection, ironically, of the Covid response itself, limited in its scope. It was a stitch up designed to look like a report.  You’ve had a bit of a look at how we handled it. But the terms of reference were very much designed not to illicit anything too dramatic.  Part two is being driven by the new Government, aghast at part one's scandalous limitations. They're working away feverishly as we speak.  But it doesn’t matter what it says. Nothing will come of it.  As I've said from day one, luck is your pre-determining factor.  Get a government of competence and you stand a chance. Get some interlopers the way we did, and you're done for.  If I learned anything, it is that warnings about doom from the likes of Bloomfield mean little, or nothing.  If any Government here ever tries half the stuff they did again, from the pulpit of truth to vaccine mandates, to lockdowns for spurious reasons, the reaction would be vastly different.  And you don't need a commission of inquiry to figure that out. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.