As trust in authorities falls, Ardern keeps faith

In locked-down New Zealand, life orbits around the 1pm briefing. The director general of health – frequently alongside the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern – takes the stage behind a socially distanced podium and updates the country.

In the middle of a Covid outbreak, as the country is, those briefings occur almost every weekday. They are so clockwork-regular, so [Hello everyone]. There are X cases of Covid-19 in the community,” each begins. After the last outbreak, media outlet The Spin off spliced together the director-general of health saying it 44 times.