It's coming home to roost a bit, isn't it?What we have learned this week, whether it be the construction company now in Britain looking to fill the jobs here that pay over $100,000, the university students that haven't come back despite the door being open, the manufacturers who told us the job queue is non-existent because reputation is an issue, or the apple orchards that have left over $100 million worth of fruit on the trees, there is a theme.The theme is we stayed closed too long.The line that the best economic response was our health response is now being shown to be the utterly dishonest nonsense it always was.We had this weird belief that when we were full and ready, we could simply turn the switch and the whole world would deal with us the way they used to, almost as though no one else out there was getting on with it, and even if they were, they were inferior to us anyway. So, all those who longed and loved New Zealand would simply line up and be grateful to return to life the way it used to be.Tourism, I think, we always accepted was going to be a slow burn. It may be even slower than we thought given the figures out this week show travel in many parts of the world is at pre-Covid levels, if not higher.We can't say anywhere near the same thing. At least part of that is on us. We never hustled and never even wanted to hustle. We became the Hermit Kingdom. Whatever reputation we had built up over the years, at least in part, has been wrecked.There is still a bit of time to put it right. Students, hopefully, will come back later this year looking for a new start. So, fingers crossed.But the labour issue is a crisis. Our tax rates are too high, our pay rates are too low and Australia has been open for months and is beating us to the skills.You notice we still don’t have a maritime border open yet?All we seemed capable of doing was panicking, locking down, and bumbling around for two years while a lot of the world moved on.We could be stuck in orange forever. Our reputation, if not ruined, in need of some serious attention.As an exercise in totality, it's a C-minus at best. Yes, we saved lives, let's toss that line in one more time, shall we?But my word, what a stunning price it looks like we are paying.

Hands up if you had no idea yesterday was a traffic light announcement day.My hand is up. I was so oblivious, it was like stepping back in time, I thought the Herald had the wrong headline up when it ran front page news that Chris Hipkins had announced we were staying in an Orange light. Really? No kidding. Didn’t even know the prospect of coming out of that was on the cards. That’s how brow-beaten we all are by now. We don’t even expect our full freedoms back do we?But it seems we're staying in Orange not just due to Covid - but the flu too.There seems to be a very nasty flu hitting Australia, we’ve had some of it here in Dunedin already, I know there're many families back to isolating and staying home with sickness. Auckland's seeing resurgence in Covid cases – up 75 percent. In fact both the shops I visited yesterday had signs up saying, ‘please be patient, we have many staff away due to Covid.’ So it appears we’re not out of the woods yet, and is worse yet to come in the form of flu?And is it that this year's flu is expected to be really bad, hence we're staying in masks, or is that the norm now, that every winter we'll go to an Orange light and stay in masks?Has Covid and the pandemic powers exerted by governments brought with it a change to life as we know it forever?Will there be a time that we once again go maskless in winter? Or will they just be the bad old days?Once the border fully opens in July and more Kiwis are travelling for school holidays and winter escapes, we will be back to circulating the usual bugs and viruses. And our immune systems will be unprepared having been locked down as a country for two years, and staying in our little bubbles.But in terms of ever getting back to Green light life? I don’t see the return to freedom happening before Christmas.But who amongst us would be brazen enough to predict anything these days? God forbid we start thinking we know what might happen or how it might unfold. Largely we just plan for the worst these days don’t we? Do we have collective PTSD from Covid? I mean Monkeypox reared its head with a handful of cases and the global panic looked to be back on immediately.We are so scarred aren’t we? I was in a lift yesterday and a woman came to hop in behind me and then she paused, neither of us were wearing masks, and she said, ‘do you mind me hopping in with you without a mask?’It’s a fair question I guess, it’s the new normal, we are paranoid about tight spaces with each other, well not all of us, but many of us. She went on to tell me she’s not had Covid, we didn’t know how we’d both dodged it so far but no one wants to be smug about that anymore given it may still come for us.The other thing I find people volunteering is their vaccination status. I was in close proximity with a stranger in a queue the other day and they turned to me and randomly volunteered, “Oh I’m double jabbed and boosted don’t worry.”Assuming that everyone is worried!It’s a wacky old world we’re living in these days, when chit chat with strangers turns into volunteering vaccination status. I guess come winter we'll just be adding in the new one .. 'don't worry I've had the flu jab.'

New Zealanders will be keeping masks on for a while yet.  The Government's announced the country will stay at the Orange level of the Traffic Light Setting, at least another month.  Gathering limits are long gone – but masks must still be worn in most indoor locations.  Our Covid Response Minister says new cold and flu strains will add to the workloads of already strained hospitals.  College of GPs medical director Bryan Betty told Heather du Plessis-Allan we're facing a complex few months ahead. “There’s very little spare capacity in the system at this point and that capacity could be used up very, very quickly if things were to worsen over winter.” LISTEN ABOVE

When 73-year-old Anne Guenole died, it was national news.Every media outlet in the country did stories. Anne’s family remembered her as a quiet nana and great-grandmother who spent most of her time at home on the South Island’s beautiful West Coast. She’d been hospitalised with a suspected case of influenza.Except it wasn’t influenza. Anne was the first New Zealander to die of Covid-19.That was March, 2020. I was thinking about that moment this morning, as I reflected on how much our collective attitude have changed in the two years since.Since Anne Guenole died, more than a thousand New Zealanders have died with Covid-19. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve died of Covid-19. I appreciate the distinction. But many of those deaths were untimely, and we continue to record ten or twenty deaths a day. Where once we gasped if the daily infection numbers were in the high teens or early twenties, now we barely pay attention to daily cases in the thousands.Could you tell me to the closest thousand how many infections New Zealand recorded on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week?It’s neither good or bad. It just says something about our psychology. It’s fascinating to me how quickly we’ve switched. Given access to vaccines and an end to lockdowns and restrictions, in a sense we’ve largely moved on. Even if the virus hasn’t.It was reflected in the budget, this week. For all the budget nicknames – braindrain budget, backwards budget, climate budget – no one was calling it a Covid budget. The cost of living has overtaken the pandemic and is far-and-away the biggest concern for a majority New Zealanders. Grant Robertson’s plans were those of a finance minister and a government that feels vulnerable to criticism over their role in inflation.It’s funny to think about how politicians frame these things. For two years, many people felt the government was prioritising lives over the economy. It’s a silly binary – if we’ve learnt anything from Covid-19, it’s that economy activity and the pandemic are closely linked.But it is true that we used to take far greater steps in order to protect lives. We had a far lower tolerance for infections and death. If we’re playing the same silly binary game today, you couldn’t argue that New Zealand isn’t prioritising the economy over doing everything possible to save lives.We’ve flipped. We’ve crossed the threshold. And I have a similar nagging feeling to that in the early stages of the pandemic. We can do what we can to soften the landing but it’s still going to hurt. Unfortunately, when you look at our economic position, inflation, growth, and interest rates, we’ve been delaying the inevitable.This time it isn’t Covid cases. It’s economic pain. Unfortunately for New Zealand, the worst is still to come.

There's big drama on the set of Dancing with the Stars. Eric Murray and Rhys Mathewson have both got Covid and have had to bow out of the competition paving the way for Alex Vaz and Newstalk ZB’s very own Kerre Woodham to return. Kerre joined Heather du Plessis-Allan. LISTEN ABOVE

Grant Robertson and Nicola Willis face off on the eve of budget day. Jacinda Ardern is back and working from home. When are we going to see pre-departure testing scrapped? Chief political reporter Jason Walls joined Heather du Plessis-Allan. LISTEN ABOVE

Assurances removing Covid testing requirements for travel won't put New Zealand at risk.  Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins says pre-departure testing is now a lot less important in our protection framework.  He's indicated the requirement will go earlier than August – as had been announced. Auckland Airport's chief executive Carrie Hurihanganui told Heather du Plessis-Allan other barriers remain in place. “Such as RATs on arrival or requirements in the system that prevent people with symptoms from getting on planes that don’t rely on pre-departure tests.” LISTEN ABOVE

So, North Korea are in the middle a major Covid-19 outbreak. With more than a million people now sick with what officials are calling a 'fever'. Limiting testing capacity has meant that only a few cases have been confirmed as actual Covid. Kim Jong-Un has also imposed a strict lockdown and more than 600,000 people receiving medical treatment. Josh Smith, Reuters senior correspondent covering North Korea, joined Heather du Plessis-Allan. LISTEN ABOVE

Doctors are warning urgent work needs to be done to understand the full impact of long Covid on people.  One in five Covid cases still have symptoms three months after they catch the virus... But there are no plans to support them.  Dr Rob Griffiths from the University of Otago joined Heather du Plessis-Allan. LISTEN ABOVE

THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Tuesday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) Lift Your Game, James/Where Everyone Gets a Supermarket/Aussie Campaign Wind-Up/Covid's Coming/Motorway Hazards