Pandemic Reflections: Two years on

This time two years ago, I was reflecting on the covid situation post-lockdown. New Zealand had just come out of its first, very strict lockdown, and we were officially covid-free in the community. For the next 15 months, from May 2020 to August 2021, with one or two brief exceptions, we were gloriously, blissfully covid free. In that time, as the virus raged and mutated in much of the rest of the world, we lived life largely as normal (with the exception of tourism businesses, and businesses that relied on immigrant labour), waiting for the development (and arrival) of the vaccines. As Stephen Colbert described us, we were “the land where hugs still happen.” In that time, thousands of lives were saved in our small country.

Ultimately, though, the virus was always going to win. We knew that. If we didn’t, we weren’t paying attention, because our government warned us of that, and prepared for it. Delta and then Omicron arrived, but by then the country was highly vaccinated, and restrictions began to be lifted, even though, for the first time since April 2020, covid became present on the streets of my city. It is now pervasive. Case numbers in New Zealand are high (though less than one third what they were at their peak), and deaths occur daily (though there is a difference between deaths with and deaths of covid). The US even warned citizens who are travelling here to beware of the situation, which – after the last two years – just seems totally bizarre.

I am now facing the quandaries that many of you have faced over the last few years – when and how to get together with friends or family, and to ask about their risk profiles or vaccination status? Am I more at risk from someone who is unvaccinated, or is he more at risk from me? (A debate I’m having with my husband, about a business friend of his.) How to balance this? Even within a relationship? Sadly, New Zealanders are less practised at navigating these issues, and perhaps more hesitant to stand firm. It is not comfortably part of our culture to stand up for ourselves in this way, and I certainly was taught to be quiet and accommodating to others, so it is hard to know how we will operate. For so long covid has not been an immediate danger to us, and it almost feels ridiculous to now become concerned about it.

The partisanship we have seen overseas is here too. You only have to look at the comments on our Prime Minister’s Fbk posts to see the vitriol and misinformation that has been influenced by foreign views. The pandemic-related solidarity we all felt this time back in 2020 now seems to be long gone, and that makes me sad.

I remember thinking at the beginning of the pandemic that it might be “over” by October 2022, for a particular celebration when I was planning a big trip. At the time, that was my conservative estimate. I knew that I might not to be able to travel before then. It was a good estimate. But of course, covid isn’t “over” and may never be. But the vaccines have been quite effective, even when boosters have been necessary, so many people and countries are behaving as if it is over. (Though they fail to recognise that just because we want it to be over, or say that it is over, this does not make it so.) However, the resistance towards vaccines overseas (and here), the inequitable distribution of the vaccines, and the dropping of so many mask mandates, threaten to derail the decline in cases globally, not to mention the possibility of aggressive or nasty new variants. As a result, I’ve lowered my expectations for later this year. But for the first time in two years, I’ve started thinking about travel, and I’ve dared to wonder about longer term travel for 2023 or 2024. It’ll take a while before any decisions. Making those might be a bit scary. But I’m allowing myself to consider the possibility.