Not sure if it's gotten coverage over there but our Parliament grounds & surrounds have for the past 13 days been the site of what's ostensibly an anti- mask and/ or vaccine mandate protest. Up to 1000 people on-site most of the time, ~500 tents & other structures incl portaloos & food trucks, ~800 vehicles blocking streets plus the nearby bus interchange. It's forced the closure of the High Court, one of Victoria Uni's schools & numerous businesses. People incl school children have been abused & spat on for wearing masks & generally trying to go about their business.
To be fair there do seem to be people there who don't seem opposed to masks & vaccines, just the mandating of them for certain people. Some of the examples they use seem barely credible but I'm happy to give them the benefit of the doubt. But mostly it's crazy town: vaccination has been characterised as a genocide on brown people being perpetrated by white people by one group & as a genocide of white people being perpetrated by "global elites" by another group just metres away.
Depending on who you listen to, the government is either a fascist or communist dictatorship, possibly even satanic. And obviously the media are complicit so they, too, will be subject to trial & execution when "the people" rise up & "take back their Country". Summed up perfectly by a woman carrying a placard reading "Love Is The Cure" while screaming at a journo that she (the journo, not the screaming one) would be executed for "crimes against humanity".
Meanwhile the Police have pretty much given up even pretending to have the situation under control: the protesters now have their own security controlling who comes & goes: portaloo emptiers & food suppliers are permitted, medics are tolerated (but frequently abused & threatened), even some journos have been allowed in (but also abused & threatened).
On about day three ~120 arrests were made but that is apparently the maximum number of people the Police can detain in Wellington at any given time. On the same day ~350 vehicles were ticketed & another 150-odd have been ticketed since but so far a grand total of two illegally-parked vehicles have been towed & maybe 20 or 30 voluntarily moved to allow emergency vehicle access.
To their credit the leaders of all the parties with MP (Moana Pasifika)'s have said they won't meet with the occupiers & have re-endorsed the mask & vaccine mandates while calling on the Gov to set dates for their lifting (Gov position is that mandates will end when no longer required but that it's impossible to set a firm date just yet).
Similar but smaller occupations are now underway in Christchurch & Picton: I'm guessing the latter is because you need to be vaccinated to cross from the South Island to the North. Supposedly 30% of kiwis are at least somewhat sympathetic or supportive of the protests but interestingly we continue to get boosted by the thousand every day & the 5-11yo program is progressing rapidly, too, so I'm not sure how genuine some of the sympathy or support really is.
Omicron has really taken off & Delta is still circulating, too: near enough 2000 cases yesterday & the day before, probably 4000/ day by next weekend at the current rate of increase. Testing numbers are up 25% since late January so maybe all those holidays did contribute to the low rates. The test positivity rate is also increasing, up to just over 6%* yesterday which double what it was a month ago. Hospitalisations also up, triple the number from just three weeks ago but so far the hospitals seem to be coping & there hasn't been a surge in ICU numbers yet.
Edit: 2252 cases & 100 in hospital today, both record numbers. Still no-one in ICU.
* Edit: today's figures suggest a 9% positivity rate which would be well above anything encountered elsewhere. Possibly its inflated by some testing sites in South Auckland, which is again ground zero, only testing people who say they've been identified as close contacts or who are symptomatic. From tomorrow anyone who is neither of those will be offered a RAT but for the last few days they've just been told to go home & only come back if symptomatic or a close contact.