Auckland Writers’ Festival

Today was nowhere as nice as yesterday - a mixture of cloud, sun and light showers with a cold wind. I was quite pleased to have work to do so I could stay in out of the cold.  Hubby was out delivering leaflets for my daughter, so he kept warm by walking around the streets of Remuera.

This evening we went into the city to the Aotea Centre/Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre to listen to a talk by AC Grayling, as part of the Auckland Writers’ Festival. Mr Grayling spoke about the climate change challenge, the technological challenge, how there have been no conversations or debates about ethical issues arising from technology (e.g. gene editing of foetuses) and how it will require a concerted global effort to do something about both challenges - interesting and thought-provoking.

There are 3,140 new community cases today, and the seven-day rolling average is 3,303 compared to 3,975 last Wednesday. The number of people in hospital is 373, including 6 in ICU. The seven-day rolling average increase in total deaths attributable to Covid-19 is 7 and 1,845 deaths have been confirmed as either directly attributed to Covid, or with Covid as a contributing factor.