"Confusion at the northern border.”

That was one headline. It was, in fact, relevant to yesterday. It could have been any other time though when we have some sort of lockdown.

New headline, old story. In other words, how long does it take to be able to roll out any sort of plan? Why is it, given this is far from the first time we've dealt with lockdown issues, that we still have the same rinse and repeat shambles?

School yesterday wasn’t all that slick at our house. Last lockdown they ran a sensational system. In fact, our daughter did vastly more work online than she ever does in a classroom.

And yet, yesterday, teachers were flummoxed, taken by surprised, tech wasn’t synced, linked, or whatever the terminology is. Why not? You did it once, why not roll it out again? Did no one expect there not to be some sort of disruption this year?

I heard a chat with Sir David Skegg, one of my favourite health experts, and yet another voice that lines up a series of measures we don’t do, haven't done probably, will never do, and that would make life here under Covid a lot safer.

He was talking about the testing of our border workers. Where have I heard that before? I know last time we had a mess like this.

No one seems to join the dots that if we got our act together when we get locked down things could roll out more smoothly. School would work, the border north and south of any given area would be smooth and easy, and if we got our act together in other areas, we might not get locked down as often as we do.

It's not entirely unique to us. There's a lot of growing calls in Australia to get returnees out of main centres, and a lot of calls to tighten up MIQ.

What I hadn't gathered until I heard Sir David was the woman wasn’t at work the day they test. And given they only test once a fortnight, why oh why only every 14 days, she wasn’t tested for a month. Why aren't we doing saliva tests? It's the same old thing.

All the stuff Chris Hipkins, Jacinda Ardern, and Ashley Bloomfield say will work, doesn’t. All the experts are offering advice for things that will never happen. All the stuff we should know, like the back of our hand, still takes us by surprise.

Am I the only one finding Groundhog Day needless and draining? Failing to learn is an indictment on our intelligence and desire to be better.

Why don’t we want to be better?