SJB:

 

Message wise, abandoning elimination was a mistake even if, in practice it was not achievable. Zero is a target understood by everyone.

 

But now we don't seem to have any generally accepted target. I'm reasonably clued up on what is happening but I have no idea even what our vaccination targets are. 

Zero is still the target outside of Auckland.

Everyone feels and is sympathetic to Aucklands plight. Two thirds of the Country are not living/experiencing it and I get that.

To me it became apparent that Auckland would not get to zero about a week in to September. Zero was still the official target Nationwide then, I think. Two more weeks was added to Auckland L4 and fairly predictably, I would of thought, it didn't get the job done. This was still the best and fastest strategy, and worth a shot, to get Auckland folk out of severe lockdown. Well the rest is history. It didn't happen.

Since then the focus has very much been on Auckland but also keeping all of NZ safe.