So back to Orange traffic light setting, case numbers are falling, vaccine mandates abandoned in most areas and people are venturing out from their foxholes.

If you had said even six months ago that with still around 4,000-5,000 news cases of Covid-19 a day and multiple deaths each day, the population would feel the worst was over, you would have been laughed at – a handful of cases was enough to lock the country down (and in the case of Auckland lock them up!). As I write this we  have just passed the one million confirmed case mark for the pandemic (and in reality probably significantly higher).
Probably both extremes were an overreaction, Omicron is still deadly – we are having fatalities every day, but the messaging is that its milder, especially if you are vaccinated and people are starting to learn or choose to live with it. I play Bridge and this week masks became voluntary, but about 75 percent of people chose to still wear them.
In terms of impact on business, whilst the less restrictive isolation rules have helped, it is still causing significant stress for businesses with staff being off sick or isolating. In addition, significant ongoing shortages of trained automotive technicians means that waiting times to get cars serviced are blowing out for some workshops. In my local area it has affected services such as rubbish collections with some recycling collections halted for a number of weeks and a growth of ships moored at sea awaiting processing in the port – exacerbating the supply chain issues affecting all goods including car parts.

Hopefully the daily numbers continue to fall and the government allows Immigration NZ to open the tap a bit more for skilled migrants to help ease some of the pressures.
In the meantime, stay safe!