Imagine if your local GP had to isolate from their family after every shift and get a COVID test... yet as we're seeing overseas, not even medical grade PPE is protecting them because they're around sick people all day.
Your local GP isn't likely to come into contact with a Covid case; face to face consultations are no longer the norm, and if it does happen it will be on the basis of a structured assessment that determines risk. If you are symptomatic you are seen by people wearing the gear.
Plain and simple, this a COVID election. Anything the media decides to go after and scare the public with, the Government jumps at.
I don't think that is the media creating the scares, it is the idiots with their conspiracy theories that is causing the upset; that and people ranting about alleged failures in systems. We've had nearly 50000 people cross the border and had a handful of dickheads disobey the systems. This was pounced on by the opposition to win brownie points. We are fortunate that we already had well developed track and trace systems for all communicable diseases. Yes, it is a Covid election, because the government are being judged on how they handled a very exceptional scenario. We don't have massive deaths, our systems are pretty much in tact. Inbound tourism is screwed for the time being (till who knows when), but as Kiwi's we are making the most of our own backyard and the return to nearer normal domestic schedules will create more domestic leisure opportunities for all of us.