She’s engaged, so why is the prime minister regularly appearing on a dating app? Zara Beauchamp investigates the strange case of Jacinda Ardern’s cameos on Tinder.

I have recently gone back on dating apps. Since I was last in this murky, selfie-filled world of flirtation and despair, several things have changed – not least, a global pandemic. Along with the Covid puns – “if Covid doesn’t take you out, can I?” – there is another new phenomenon: the use of the prime minister as what I can only bluntly describe as date bait.

She joins the ranks of more traditional ways to boost a profile: cute dogs, scenic overseas shots, pictures with a hotter friend. And now there is Jacinda, smiling up from the profiles of Tom, Dick and Harry. I am both impressed at her pulling power and at the sheer number of meet and greets she must be doing for this many people to have pictures with her. Are singles gathering in hopeful herds outside the Beehive waiting to nab one? I guess these days, your odds of nabbing a Jacinda pic are considerably higher than a picturesque overseas location.

I match with a guy who, alongside winsome shots in exotic locales, has a picture of himself chatting merrily to Jacinda. He still looks tall next to her, and knowing Jacinda is of reasonable stature, I take this as handy reassurance of his actual height – thank you, prime minister. We met for a drink. He is tall and looks like his pictures, hooray. I ask him about meeting JA herself.

“She was great, so amazing,” he gushes. 

I don’t get much more detail out of him as he moves on to attempting to read my palm by candlelight. Apparently, I’m destined to have two great loves and a heart attack at 50. We meet a few more times and then it fizzles out and I worry that the Jacinda pics may be huge, Labour-red flags. 

I go back to swiping and the Jacindas keep popping up. Snaps taken by parliament, out and about, in government offices. Then the boldest yet: a profile that just has her headshot as their main picture. Pure and beautiful. As if you were going to match with Jacinda herself – except now she is a man called Tom who goes rock climbing at weekends.   

It’s a version of the halo effect, a cognitive bias where we tend to give more positive impressions to something we already have a positive association with. Like rating someone more attractive as more intelligent. I assume the hope is that some of Jacinda’s halo (glowier by the day) rubs off. Of course, it can also work the other way, known as a “horn effect”. I guess this is what Young Nats experience confronted with the grinning Jacindas. 

While I’m still unsure if a Jacinda pic is a giant red flag, I match with someone with a profile clean of any politicians; just a perfectly bland headshot of themselves. We go for a drink mid-week after work. When I’m tired of talking about myself, I bring up the Jacinda phenomenon. 

“Did you know that people having Jacinda in their profile pictures is, like, a thing?” His eyebrows raise slightly, and he says that actually, he’s seen her on a bunch of women’s profiles too. My eyebrows raise a lot, 

“Really? Wow, so this is a cross-gender phenomenon.”

I don’t know why I’m so surprised – I guess the halo effect works across genders. I wonder if it has more pulling power for either side? I’d also love some data from the rainbow community on this. 

We debate whether the phenomenon exists in other countries. I can imagine Justin Trudeau getting a lot of mileage in Canada. Maybe some racy Boris Johnsons in the UK. Agree that Obama would still have pulling power and Trump, well, we’ll just leave that there. I thank my date for the evening and ask him to send me pictures of any cases he comes across. It’s probably not a good sign for our romantic prospects that I am more excited about this than seeing him again. 

On the next profile I see with a Jacinda, I swipe right and get straight to the point: 

Me: Does Jacinda know you are using her for date bait?

Him: haha unsure what she would think to be honest! do you think she would be against having her pic?

Good question, and one I have been asking myself too. I turn to Google for help and this leads me straight to Jacinda’s very own profile on Tinder circa 2014.

Yes, turns out, Tinder was part of her pathway to prime minister. Six years ago, Ardern was in opposition, a Labour list MP campaigning for the Auckland Central seat. As part of the #askjacinda campaign modelled off Reddit’s AMAs (ask me anything), she got Tinder. “Clocked Tinder? Fear not there are still political candidates keen to talk to you (about voting). So go on, ask me anything (about voting).”  

Is this my answer? For the 2020 campaign, instead of having to schlep through the pile herself, she has scores of eager singles doing it for her. Well played, prime minister. 

I go back to the current match, who is now professing his undying love for Labour. I wonder if this stuff is meant to turn you on in your 30s. He wonders if Judith Collins has made it on to any profiles yet and we both write “haha”.  He asks which politician in the world I’d have lunch with, and tells me his is Obama or Merkel.

The political flirting has all got a bit heavy-handed and while I’m not sure if I’m into it, Jacinda would probably be proud. She can chalk it up as bonus campaigning. This thought turns more sinister when I read an article about political campaigners in the UK creating bots to populate dating apps who send automated messages to sway voters. “Hey beautiful, let me tell you all the reasons why I’m voting Labour in the next election!”

I swipe through a few more profiles. No more Jacindas but at the bottom of the pile, someone has copy-pasted Judith Collins directly beneath their face, along with the words “LET’S CRUSH THIS”. Must be harder to nab her for a real-life selfie, I think. But hey, it’s election season, perfect time to get out there and catch one in the wild. 

Auckland is at alert level three, and the rest of the country level two, until midnight tonight. At 5.30pm this evening, we’ll find out what happens next. These are the factors cabinet is likely to consider in making the decision.

During the first wave, the announcement we were moving into lockdown felt sudden. This time, it really was. Overnight, we went from level one with zero cases of Covid-19 in the community to four cases and level three in Auckland. Now, the country sits on 17 confirmed cases (but has possibly up to 18, with at least one case reported in Tokoroa today, or 19, depending on whether the child from the Torbay school reported last night was among the number confirmed yesterday or not).

It feels like a massive jump, but compared to what happened in March it could be much more manageable. While public opinion and economic punditry might imply a level four lockdown would be devastating, our government has shown its willingness to go hard and go early on Covid-19 in the community.

Will that happen this evening? These are the factors at play.

Rising cases

Last time the entire country went into level three lockdown, on March 23, the total number of cases was 102, after 32 new cases were confirmed in one day. Right now we have 36 cases in total, 17 of which are classified as community transmission, 13 of which were identified yesterday. At least one new case has been reported in Tokoroa since yesterday’s 1pm announcement, and while they remain unconfirmed by the Ministry of Health minister of health Chris Hipkins has said more cases linked to the new cluster will be announced at today’s 1pm update.

Compared to the last wave, this is about where we were at prior to the alert level system being introduced. By the time alert level three and subsequently alert level four were put in place in March, the number had almost doubled within two days, from 54 cases on March 21.

The source

While the source of the outbreak hasn’t yet been confirmed, all cases appear to be linked to the Americold cluster, which is somewhat reassuring; level three may have been put in place before it could spread further into the community.

Tracing the outbreak to its source is easier under level three conditions, so it’s likely Auckland will remain at a semi-standstill until the index case, or a batch of cold-store virus, is found. Professor Shaun Hendy, director of Te Pūnaha Matatini, told the Science Media Centre he was particularly interested in upstream contact tracing – where contact tracing is used to find the source of infections, rather than the resulting cases. “It is a technique that was used widely in Japan to contain their outbreak,” he said, describing it as “cluster-busting”.

Genomic sequencing is already providing results to this effect. As director general of health Ashley Bloomfield announced yesterday, the genomic sequences most similar to these cases are from the UK and Australia.

The modelling

An R0 number tells us how infectious a virus is: if its R0 number is 1, then someone with the virus will infect, on average, one other person. Covid-19 has an estimated R0 number of 2.2, and that’s a relatively conservative estimate. It’s clear steps must be taken to prevent the spread; it won’t die out naturally.

Mathematical modelling tells us the probability of the spread; where, who, and what the source could be. Modelling will heavily influence the decision made this afternoon. Yesterday, Michael Plank, a member of the modelling team, said the worst-case scenario was a super-spreading event. Last Saturday’s fried chicken festival and Labour Party campaign launch are examples of big events that have the potential to be super-spreaders, but it’s likely there would be an indication of infection from these events by now.

Contact tracing

Downloads of the Covid-19 tracing app have been rapidly rising since Tuesday, when the first cases of community transmission were announced. Nearly one million New Zealanders have now downloaded the NZ Covid Tracer app, according to Bloomfield. He said at yesterday’s press conference that there were “338,200 new downloads of the app, 514,901 QR code scans and 292,502 manual diary entries” since Tuesday night.

Yesterday was the first time an alert had been sent out via the app, to people who were in certain locations that two members of the infected South Auckland family visited during their trip to Rotorua.

In March, Victoria University computer scientist Simon McCallum told Stuff the tracer app would be useful only if one to two million people downloaded it.

The state of testing

Yesterday, Bloomfield said 6,006 tests were processed on August 12, the day after it was announced Covid-19 has re-entered the community. He said that more than 10,000 swabs were collected, leaving just under 4,000 still to be processed from that date; we’ll hear about them today. Testing didn’t slow down on August 13, and there are now 16 community testing stations open in Auckland. There is no shortage of swabs, and GPs have been told they can order as many as are needed.

Tests take around 24 hours to process, so we’re more likely to see a large boost in case numbers today than yesterday.

Testing in Rotorua has also been high over the past two days, and if the virus spread during one case’s weekend visit it’s likely we’ll know by this evening.

Currently, nasal swabs are the only test used. Pool testing – which would enable whole suburbs, streets or even larger communities to be check for presence of Covid-19 – is currently possible but is not being done.

A Ministry of Health spokesperson said not to worry if a test result was taking longer than 24 hours.“If the result is positive, the person will be quickly informed,” they said. “If it is a negative test it may take slightly longer for the person to be informed of the result.”

The spread

A new case of a child who goes to school in Torbay overnight suggests a spread of Covid-19 to the North Shore, which would mean both urbanised ends of Auckland are infected. It’s expected this new case will be connected to the Americold cluster.

Testing has been ramped up in Rotorua and Taupō, with two testing centres in Rotorua and one in Taupō completing a combined 554 tests on Wednesday alone, following information that the South Auckland family had visited last weekend. So far there have been no confirmed cases outside of Auckland.

Today, media are reporting at least one confirmed case has been discovered in Tokoroa, a Waikato town about two and a half hours south of Auckland. It has been suggested the two have links to the Auckland cluster. Yesterday, it was revealed that one of the Americold cluster cases had visited a rest home in another Waikato town, Morrinsville, prior to becoming symptomatic, but Morrinsville and Tokoroa are an hour’s drive apart, and there doesn’t appear to be a link.

The cluster numbers

Currently there is only one cluster, officially confirmed as 17 people, comprising the original four from the South Auckland family and 13 of their contacts. During the peak of New Zealand’s first outbreak there were 16 active clusters.

It’s unknown for certain whether the Tokoroa case and the Torbay student are part of this same cluster, though it’s very likely they are.

The public mood

In May, a Newshub-Reid research poll found 91.6% of New Zealanders supported the lockdown.

While there are still huge amounts of public support for the government’s response to Covid-19, ideas originating from US-based conspiracy groups have made their way here. These ideas question the validity of the public health information that’s been circulated by the government, and include anti-mask and anti-lockdown sentiment, as well as Covid-19 denial.

A protest against a nationwide lockdown was planned for tomorrow in central Auckland, and a small anti-lockdown march has already taken place in Whangārei, which is at level two. National Party deputy Gerry Brownlee has also been accused of inciting further mistrust for sharing doubts about whether the government has shared all necessary information with the public.

Our guess

The immediate rush to get tested means we’ll have a strong indication of how far the virus spread by this evening. “Stop the spread” and “go hard and go early” have been the approaches so far. With a confirmed case allegedly found in Tokoroa, a regionalised shift to level three centred around that town is possible. It’s also possible the entire country will shift to level three, or that just the North Island will level up.

Health minister Chris Hipkins said this morning that for New Zealand to move to alert level four there would need to be “a number” of clusters and unconnected cases. While “one” is a number, it probably won’t be high enough.

During the last lockdown, we were told two weeks were needed for the virus’s lifecycle to complete. It’s likely that even if case numbers don’t significantly increase, at least Auckland will will remain in level three for two weeks from August 11. If a significant number of cases is found in Auckland, it could move up to level four.