Buying time was worth it

I witnessed my first supermarket mask confrontation the other day.

- RUSSELL BROWN

A man had wandered in unmasked and a second man, who turned out to be my old neighbour, was shouting legally actionable threats at him. After he was done shouting, he saw me and greeted me cheerily. He's a lovely chap. But clearly, what we do and don't do about Covid still raises passions.

For all the controversy it has generated - more among the commentariat than the masses - the extension of the MIQ system by a few precious weeks did save lives. More than three-quarters of eligible adults received booster shots and our peak Omicron mortality was half that of Australia's and vastly lower than in the US.