New Zealand’s “freedom of choice” is being “eroded” under Covid-19 restrictions, while life in the rest of the world “has largely returned to normal”, champion Kiwi sailor Russell Coutts claims.
In a Facebook post, the SailGP chief executive said being in Europe since May had given him perspective.
“The fact is that people are living with Covid offshore and although some people, perhaps many, rightly remain cautious, life has largely returned to normal in many places,” he wrote.
Europe has been experiencing an increase in Covid-19 cases in recent weeks, with a Reuters tally showing Eastern European countries were reporting about 20 per cent of all new cases reported globally . That’s despite the region only making up four per cent of the world’s population.
The UK recorded nearly 43,500 new cases - the 12th highest in the world - and 263 deaths from the virus on Wednesday.
Coutts said “seems totally insane” that double-vaccinated people are “terrified” of those who were unvaccinated.
“The erosion of our freedom of choice, freedom of speech and the loss of precious time with family and friends and all the other negative aspects of a lockdown should be balanced against the health risk of Covid.”
He also called MIQ “nonsense” and “contradictory” because people with Covid-19 were being allowed to self-isolate at home.
“How New Zealand, a country where it's people greatly valued freedom off choice [sic] … how we even got to this stage of blindly accepting this sort of unilateral rule, power and dictatorship from our Government is deeply troubling indeed.”
A Government announcement about MIQ changes is expected this week.
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