To many Kiwis, the description of Sir Ashley Bloomfield as a “mild-mannered healthcare hero” who helped save tens of thousands of lives during the Covid pandemic is accurate.
For others, he’s nothing less than a civil service superhero, with many fans starting Facebook pages in his honour and proudly wearing Dr Ashley Curve Crusher t-shirts.
But as Ashley talks to the Weekly from Geneva, Switzerland, he looks nothing like the man who addressed the nation most days, telling us what we needed to do to stay safe during Covid.
“We’ve been doing some family holiday over here and that included a decent eightday walking trip in the Swiss Alps, which we finished a couple of days ago,” he says.
The family of five spent a year in Geneva in 2011 when Ashley worked for the World Health Organisation (WHO), so it is familiar territory for them.
“Two of our children are travelling around Europe at
