OPINION: The widespread pain of this last lockdown will only dawn on the many COVID-19 fatigued business owners as they return to work on Monday.
For many, this latest yo-yo is likely to have broken them.
Bar owners are going to the wall - yes the wage subsidy worked in paying staff but many businesses have bled and enough is enough.
The truth is this was an unpopular lockdown - number four.
And it may yet prove to be a botched one too that could have been avoided had health authorities done a better job and not sent confusing messages.
No one wanted this on again off again lockdown.
No one wants another and if I got paid a dollar every time a business owner told me it wasn't justified then I'd be booking a trip to Australia.
But that bubble has burst too so tough it out would ya.
But toughing it out simply isn't an option for thousands of businesses who have closed in these COVID times.
More than 16,000 businesses went under in the three months to September last year.
The effects and pain of this lockdown is yet to come which scares me.
I know photographers and barbers whose businesses are teetering.
I'm not talking about the big corporates. I'm talking about little Kiwi businesses that don't have the ability to sustain constant losses.
We must find a better, more sophisticated approach than lockdown.
No more - and I can't see us cooperating anyway if yesterday's total disregard for social distancing is anything to go by.
Roll out the vaccine and get on with it.
Duncan Garner is a host of The AM Show.
