OPINION: For the first time in this pandemic, I am seriously questioning the decision to send my 10-year-old son back to school on Monday.
Auckland goes to level 2 on Sunday night and is allowing all schools to open again, but is this really the right thing to do?
Surely such an obvious risk requires caution, not flinging open the gates.
Professor David Murdoch has said moving to alert level 2 worries him more than opening the school gates, but I have got skin in the game now - he's 10 - COVID-19 is on our doorstep and in my neighbourhood.
We have one giant Auckland cluster which is ring fenced at 118, but growing daily, and who really knows whether it's under control.
And then there's the rise of this second possible mini cluster at the Mt Roskill Church, which is just a kilometre down the road from my lad's school.
And the Government and public health officials are still trying to work out where the COVID-19 came from in both cases and whether they are genuinely linked.
I'm worried because COVID-19 surrounds us within a one kilometre radius.
To the north is Mt Albert and the original COVID-19 cluster. To the east is Mt Roskill and the church. To the west is New Lynn and the original COVID-19 cluster.
Dozens of schools exist in this small radius, I think we face way more risk than other schools in suburbs further away.
Could we lock down certain suburbs? Mt Roskill, Mt Albert, New Windsor, New Lynn or at least the schools within those suburbs, rather than open them up Monday.
Our school currently plans to open, but pages and pages of rules have been sent. Class is on, but everything else is cancelled.
School sports, the annual camp, cross country, karate, swimming, the water fountains... and parents are banned from coming onto school grounds too.
We closed the school months ago when we had no community transmission - now we are about to open it and COVID-19 is crawling to within an inch of the school gate - I don't understand.
Duncan Garner hosts The AM Show.
