There's no doubt that this has been an incredibly tough time for our Aucklanders, for Auckland whānau, but whenever I've spoken to Aucklanders, they share two things with me. Firstly, they talk about the fact that it feels different when there are community cases in your community, the risk feels closer, and especially when the vaccination rates have been low. They talk about concern for older members of the community, for kids going back to school, and for the immuno-compromised. What they describe to me has felt like a description of the proximity of the risk for them in Auckland—feeling quite, quite different. 