How the Covid era changes us

Written By: - Date published: 3:42 pm, February 3rd, 2022 - 45 comments
Categories: covid-19, health, jacinda ardern, labour - Tags:


So with Prime Minister announcing effectively the beginning of the end of state control of COVID, I set myself a challenge of asking the question:

How will the end of COVID change us all?

  1. IT STAYS PERSONAL

In our worklife, in resthomes, in sports games, in travel, there will be a permanent question hovering over every choice we are about to make: “Is there any reason to do this in person?”

Those who grew up in the analogue world, who hand-wrote their essays, always shook hands, always hugged … that kind of closeness and affection is dissolving and it’s not returning.

Digital engagement has created more distance, yes, but also more connection to more people who are also on average safer because of that distance.

There is less love, and more “likes”. We know each other now from a distance, from a screen.

2. NEW RESISTANCE RISES

What could in the early days have evolved into a new kind of patriotism as health and front-line workers were celebrated, has instead turned into a belligerent recalcitrance. The abuse of anyone in a shop from Colac Bay to Kaitaia to anyone required to put on a mask before entering a shop.

The marches in the streets against vaccination mandates may well cease, but the core of the unvaccinated-and-damn-the-consequences will network tightly and they will remain resolute, organised, and continue major interruptions into social media and mainstream media until they get what they want no matter its impact on the rest of us. Their children will expand the underclass because their parents damned them to it.

3. EPISTEMIC SHOCK RECOVERY

COVID has been the turn back to expertise that we had always hoped for, following the rise of the internet’s democratised knowledge. Those who have taken heed of official advice have been rewarded for it. Those who believed in reliable and regulated medical research are now on the side of the gods. The reach of the public service and of public policy deep into the recesses of personal and family behaviour from the richest to the poorest to the most criminal, over such a short time, has challenged 95% of us to agree with official advice and to make us obey that. It has changed the way 5 million of us think about facts, experts, and how we respond to actual facts with our personal behaviour.

4. THE DOMINANCE OF FAMILY AND HOME

By the time Omicron washes over us, every single one of us will know of a family who has had to stay at home in isolation while the infection passed through them. The places we live – rented or owned – will be more and more where we live, sleep, and work 24 hours a day. We shop less in shops, and with less pleasure. Pressure will mount ever-higher to find the most secure, most resilient place to live. Cable broadband will be as important as good heating. Because it will be harder to welcome the stranger in, those without good homes to go to will be even more precarious. Families, not churches or sports clubs, will be where we necessarily retreat to as primary social units.

5. THE SCREEN BECOMES OUR WORLD

We will be doing doctor consultations from home. We will be doing more court fixtures by screen. We will have our performance reviews and job interviews on line. We will buy cars with ‘on paper’ inspections. We will divorce on Teams. We will get used to family reunions, birthdays, and funerals online – and the analogue versions will be small and highly discreet moments of exclusivity. Our devices will burrow deeper and deeper into our lives as they make our screen lives continuous: who we wake up to, who cares if we exist, who we eat with, how we go to sleep at night, and whether we even need to be in the same country as them when that old world of touch is gone. We will discover how much we didn’t need to drive to do that thing – and how to prepare and make the most of driving or flying when we need to.

We will have to get used to that slippery slope between solitude and loneliness, as we face ourselves in the tiny gaps between one virtual world-device and the next.

The bucket list of our top 5 places we always thought we’d get to one day: it’s just gone.

6. OUR CARE FOR THE VERY OLD AND VERY YOUNG

We have seen gaping holes open up in our care infrastructure. We have mostly had our jobs saved, but we have gone through a nationwide crisis and we know it. We’ve had to take in elderly parents to live out their years – or indeed moved in with them – because we can’t live without each other and there’s just not enough care spaces for them anywhere.

Those in resthome care have been locked away from us, so we know it can happen again and there will be nothing to do but watch them die through a screen. The options for childcare and home schooling have amounted to young people knowing their futures were curtailed, parents under stress with noisy children at home when they need to work, and there are no carer alternatives to be found anywhere. Care is for family, and it’s tight.

7. THE MASSIVE STATE DOESN’T RETREAT

We know that yet again the state has saved us but it has appeared to cost us so much. The renationalisation of healthcare and its linkup with our communications devices for personal location together with vaccinations and the entry to society and employment that affords, has made many more people a lot more distrustful of the reach of this new form of the state.

Equally every one of us has become more and more dependent on the state’s social welfare in all its forms to keep us afloat – whether we are a business owner, a manager, a worker, a student, a sick person, a parent, or the quite old.

It is the pattern of the world that the state uses every new technology to narrow and specify what exactly is defined as freedom. The great majority of us know that a kind of social contract has been reconfirmed, and that is as dark as it is light. Where the danger lies, there the saving power also grows, and we can realise it as a chill. Those who really knew how to operate the media were taught that they could push back the politicians and the bureaucrats by force, and win: but they were as rare as they were celebrated.

8. ELECTIONS WERE OK, POLITICS WAS FINE

Election day is gone. Election month is in, and the world didn’t fall apart. Democracy didn’t collapse and in most senses since the government was elected on a COVID vote it has had to rigorously stick to everything it promised to do because it knows it was sitting on a knife-edge of public trust that got sharper and sharper by the week. We didn’t turn to extremism, we did the usual washing from mild-left to mild-right, and it continued to work out fine. Cabinet and parliament kept its cool and we on the whole responded to that.

9. THE “RULES” WERE LIES

Yes, after all that time and all those cuts in the 1990s, the government had the capacity to spend billions and billions more – on anything it wanted. All along, evictions were avoidable. At every point we needed the state to own more housing and control electricity and be certain of its command of healthcare and control national and internal borders – and we only scraped by because two decades ago most of that control had just been sold off for cents.

More lies: In fact, every rough sleeper in the country could be taken care of. No, water and electricity and rates foreclosure didn’t need to be threatened, ever. Actually, there are so few workers that our bosses totally need us.

Yes, we could have worked from home successfully and no we didn’t need to come into work and be lectured to by fools and training courses teaching us trite nonsense and buzzwords. Yes, most of the cumulative years spent commuting in cars were a complete waste of time and stress and quality time I could have had with my family. Most of the rules we lived by were bullshit.

10. WE GOT WORSE

Most of us got poorer. Almost all of us realised we didn’t have enough savings to get us through a month let alone a redundancy. Fewer of us felt like we could really get somewhere in this world. Our dependency on global supply chains was so high it sent a chill through our oligopoly retailers and service providers. We were competent and we kept trading but otherwise we retreated from the world.

We were stabilised by our national leadership but with less faith in religion or social groups and clubs or our old cultures and hangouts simply because we couldn’t participate our entire national social life is weak.

It has chilled us. It’s made us really hard to be hopeful.

45 comments on “How the Covid era changes us ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Grey Area 1
    3 February 2022 at 4:19 pm

    Do you mean era not area?

  2. DS 2
    3 February 2022 at 5:07 pm

    Covid's not ending, of course. It's just in a couple of months, one of two things will happen – either the trauma of hundreds of dead will actually remind people that MIQ and lockdowns saved lives, and there is pushback against the media narrative, or (like the rest of the world), the population becomes desensitised to the carnage. Everyone just accepts that they'll lose a couple of years of life-expectancy. But, hey, "rights."

    • McFlock 2.1
      3 February 2022 at 5:17 pm

      Totally.

      And eventually we'll be cramming in wasteful cruise ships and passenger jets to show their occupants our "clean" environment as our landfills wash into the sea.

    • Ad 2.2
      3 February 2022 at 6:10 pm

      After 2 years of success I see this government+bureaucracy as having achieved what it said it would do, so we can trust it to achieve at least as good or better this time.

      • DS 2.2.1
        4 February 2022 at 5:37 am

        I believe the technical term is "surrender."

        I am sure history would not have judged the Fraser Government kindly if it had similarly surrendered in 1941.

        • Ad 2.2.1.1
          4 February 2022 at 8:51 am

          We have had less than 60 deaths over two years so far.

          The UK has had over 150,000, which is about half the number of UK troops killed in World War 2

          NZ deserves more respect for keeping Covid deaths so low | Stuff.co.nz

          If we had suffered the same number of deaths that the UK had done, that 60 would be 10,000. Around 12,000 New Zealander died in World war 2.

          Ardern has done even better than what Prime Minister Fraser did for us, and protected us better. But do keep going with the historical analogies and stuff.

          • DS 2.2.1.1.1
            4 February 2022 at 11:34 am

            Umm…

            (1) Peter Fraser was up against something far more monstrous than Covid. To say that Ardern has protected us better is utter lunacy.

            (2) My point actually was that you don't just fight well for two years, surrender, and then claim victory. You keep on fighting.

            • Patricia Bremner 2.2.1.1.1.1
              4 February 2022 at 12:27 pm

              DS compare apples with apples. In Fraser's day women had few rights, people believed in Church and State to a greater degree and listened to the radio for news and instructions. (There was no fantasy internet world)

              Today everyone has rights, and can freely talk and send visual messages about their take on things. This means many strands of information and misinformation. The State has been dissed by past Governments to the point that structures of State in a pandemic are seen to be taking away personal and business freedoms.

              Jacinda Ardern believes in Democracy. In other words when a majority want something, she tends to listen, as she is pragmatic not autocratic.

              What is happening is scary, but if you are boostered you follow the health rules your chances of critical illness is low.

              Long Covid is still a concern, and will need special monitoring. At least we know now that is a possibility to be taken seriously, where often other viral illness were considered over long before long term harm had been measured. Treatment to assist breathing support may be offered as in asthma.

    • Ieuan 2.3
      4 February 2022 at 8:54 am

      Given our high vaccination & booster rates, the fact Omicron is milder than delta and our high level of mask wearing it's unlikely there will be 'carnage'.

      If anything the 'media narrative' has been to talk up the worst case analysis rather than have more balanced discussions. Remember how we were going to have 7000 delta cases a day?

      It's certainly time to start living with COVID and reconnecting with the rest of the world.

      • weka 2.3.1
        4 February 2022 at 9:13 am

        Given our high vaccination & booster rates, the fact Omicron is milder than delta and our high level of mask wearing it's unlikely there will be 'carnage'.

        Omicron isn't milder. It causes less severe illness in individuals generally but because it infects many more people than delta is still causes a lot of deaths, hospitalisations and probably long covid across populations.

        If anything the 'media narrative' has been to talk up the worst case analysis rather than have more balanced discussions. Remember how we were going to have 7000 delta cases a day?

        You mean this modelling from Auckland Uni?

        Modelling shows even if New Zealand reaches a COVID-19 vaccination rate of 80 percent, there would still be 60,000 hospitalisations and 7000 deaths per year, without restrictions.

        My emphasis.

        https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/09/covid-19-delta-modelling-shows-7000-deaths-per-year-in-new-zealand-with-80-percent-vaccination-rate.html

        So what's your point? That the media reported modelling that showed if we abandoned precautions we'd have a lot of deaths? Because it look like you were implying that the government response was overdone.

        It's certainly time to start living with COVID and reconnecting with the rest of the world

        Ah, yes. The argument for letting a contagious illness run free that kills/hospitalises/disables people, especially vulnerable people, and overruns or stresses health care.

        This of course isn't what the government is proposing, so I assume you mean that we open the borders but still take precautions and that we adapt our response to future variants.

        But I am curious if there are any countries that have gone back to normal? Because the open the borders argument never seems to address that we will be free to travel alongside watching New Zealanders die and get sick and how that impacts on families and communities and health care.

        • Enough is Enough 2.3.1.1
          4 February 2022 at 10:06 am

          Nobody wants their loved ones to die, or to see our health system under extreme stress.

          But I think the government has now struck a good balance. We have the highest vaccinated population in the world (or close to it). Now is the time to reopen.

          I want to live in a country that has an arts scene, where my kids can go to festivals, where musicians can earn a living, where people with faith can worship, where my brother who lives in Sydney can visit me, where people who play sport for a living can do that, where young adults can go clubbing at night, where pregnant women living overseas can come home to have their babies.

          Yes their is risk associated with allowing all of that to happen. Someone I know may catch COVID from one of those things happening and have a serious reaction. But life is full of risk. And on balance, I agree with the position taken by Jacinda and welcome what is happening.

          • weka 2.3.1.1.1
            4 February 2022 at 10:48 am

            I want to live in a country that has an arts scene, where my kids can go to festivals, where musicians can earn a living, where people with faith can worship, where my brother who lives in Sydney can visit me, where people who play sport for a living can do that, where young adults can go clubbing at night, where pregnant women living overseas can come home to have their babies.

            I'd be ok with that if we were addressing climate/eco crisis, and as a society were actually looking after vulnerable people. But we're not doing either of those things, so it's hard to see the wants of many people as short term and short sighted. I don't know how old you are, but are you assuming climate change isn't going to cause a similar crisis as we've been in for the past two years? Are you watching the West Coast this week?

            As an example, currently people who get a chronic illness that means they cannot work are entitled to a benefit. It's hit and miss if they will go on SLP or the dole, but either way they're likely to experience poverty. What's the rate of long covid? If we as a country are saying that long covid is a price worth paying, we need to also say that living in poverty is too. I would have far less of a problem with your position if I thought the things you describe were intended for all NZ. They're not.

            (I'm not actually suggesting that we look after vulnerable people long term, because that ship has clearly sailed, I just want people to be honest about what opening up means).

            Yes their is risk associated with allowing all of that to happen. Someone I know may catch COVID from one of those things happening and have a serious reaction. But life is full of risk.

            Except some people in NZ will pay for that risk far higher than others.

            • Enough is Enough 2.3.1.1.1.1
              4 February 2022 at 12:12 pm

              I would have far less of a problem with your position if I thought the things you describe were intended for all NZ. They're not.

              Are you saying that unless something benefits all New Zealanders then we don't really need it. So my friends who work in the arts can just suck it up because not every New Zealander wants to go to the Opera. Or my kids can miss out on going to Festivals. Paige Harreb can find a new career because she can't surf professionally anymore.

              I am being totally honest about what opening up means. There will be consequences, that may well affect me or people I know. They may affect people I don't know and each and everytime that will be a massive tragedy.

              Our government did a superb kob of protecting us when we had no vaccine. Now we have that protection they are rightfully moving us onto the next phase which I applaud them for.

              • weka …
                4 February 2022 at 12:31 pm

                Are you saying that unless something benefits all New Zealanders then we don't really need it. So my friends who work in the arts can just suck it up because not every New Zealander wants to go to the Opera. Or my kids can miss out on going to Festivals. Paige Harreb can find a new career because she can't surf professionally anymore.

                No, I'm saying that the list you gave is literally not available to many NZers because of how we run the country. You want the country to be run a certain way, I'm saying fine, just be honest about the costs and who bears them.

                I gave you an example of long covid and what will happen to those people over the long term. Where is the call to increase SLP? Not happening, because mostly NZ just doesn't care that much. Be honest about it.

          • DS 2.3.1.1.2
            4 February 2022 at 11:41 am

            And I don't want to live in a society that prioritises peoples overseas shopping trips over the lives of our elderly and vulnerable.

            The poison of neoliberalism runs very deep, it seems…

            • Enough is Enough 2.3.1.1.2.1
              4 February 2022 at 12:01 pm

              Well that's lucky because you don't live in a country that does that, and nothing proposed by the government comes close to your hair brained hyperbole

              • weka …
                4 February 2022 at 12:33 pm

                when are NZers allowed to leave, go to Australia, and come back and self isolate? Pretty soon I thought. How is DS wrong? You think people won't be popping over to Sydney for a shopping weekend?

                • weka …
                  4 February 2022 at 12:33 pm

                  this is what I meant about being honest.

                • Enough is Enough …
                  4 February 2022 at 2:11 pm

                  DS is wrong if she thinks Jacinda is priortising people travelling to Sydney over the elderly and the vulnerable.

                  To suggest such a thing is dishonest

                  • Shanreagh …
                    4 February 2022 at 4:33 pm

                    Why do you say this? It is clear that this is going to be one of the bigger take aways from the announcements. It is very clear that for some reason we, as a country, just could not wait until we had seen the measure of covid in our communities before we unleashed it here. So in that way people's overseas trips in and out have had priority.

                    Holidays overseas tripping around overseas…….while we have not got a coherent power to the people plan for climate change nor a plan for more building of homes, a plan to enable people who want to buy a home the chance of doing so before they reach middle age.

                    Again that is what we are meaning that trips overseas appear to have been given a higher priority than these.

        • Craig H 2.3.1.2
          4 February 2022 at 10:25 am

          A major worry for me is losing control of Delta – it's still out there, and once case numbers are high, we will lose the ability to sequence and track and trace.

          • weka 2.3.1.2.1
            4 February 2022 at 10:48 am

            are they publicising how many delta cases we are getting?

            • arkie 2.3.1.2.1.1
              4 February 2022 at 10:59 am

              “The Ministry of Health wants everyone to treat either Delta cases or Omicron cases with the same seriousness, and follow public health advice.”

              They announced they would no longer report the variant as they say Omicron is now 'dominant'.

              • weka …
                4 February 2022 at 11:02 am

                My take on that is that we should be taking any covid infection or possible infection seriously.

                If they are still genome sequencing cases with no clear connection, will that be enough to give useful number of delta and where it is spreading? (even if they're not announcing numbers daily)

                • arkie …
                  4 February 2022 at 11:05 am

                  Absolutely, but it does seem a little 'do as we say not as we do' what with the change in approach regarding Omicron.

                  I would assume the ministry would still be tracking the variants and their spread, but I don't know sorry.

                • Craig H …
                  4 February 2022 at 2:14 pm

                  They will sequence as long as the labs can keep up with it, but at some point the number of cases will be too high for that to be possible any more.

      • DS 2.3.2
        4 February 2022 at 11:38 am

        Australia shows how mild Omicron really is, mate.

        The media narrative has been wall to wall undermining of the response in general, and MIQ in particular. Their focus has always been on a handful of privileged muppets, rather than the necessity of saving lives.

        I see even RNZ is at it today. Honestly, MIQ deserves better.

  3. RosieLee 3
    3 February 2022 at 5:20 pm

    They've totally wimped out.

  4. Adrian 4
    3 February 2022 at 5:25 pm

    A good summary Ad, but a little pessimistic I feel. I’m still eventually going to do and see the things overseas that I want to do. Even this morning on the site of a house that a neighbour has been dreaming of building for 10 years I was shaking hands with the concrete workers down from Auckland, one of them from Jamaica another from Aussie and the local Blenheim crew. It felt good being normal. If we try to avoid every chance that a stray corona may drift your way we may never be successful, may as well enjoy a reasonably cautionarily life. The best option now at peak vax is maybe to make its acquaintance and hope for the best much like it’s cousin the flu. We don’t hide under the blankets from that.

    Our care rules do need a shakeup, parking us old buggers in TheSwordOfDamacules Rest Home cared for by immigrant workers estranged from their own families is unfair on them and unsustainable. We need to look after our own like previous generations did, after all they looked after us as hopeless foundlings shitting and spewing from both ends, it’s time to repay the favour.

    Good luck in the Brave New World everyone and not unlike any other era we’re going to need it.

    • Drowsy M. Kram 4.1
      3 February 2022 at 7:45 pm

      hope for the best … Good luck

      Yep, it's a new virus, and the reported number of currently infected hosts is approaching 1% of the global population. Just how SARS-CoV-2 might 'utilise' an abundant population of increasingly mobile humans with diverse immune systems (vaccinated, recovered, naive, etc. etc.) to spread far and wide certainly has me hoping for the best of luck – as you say, we're going to need it.

      COVID-19: TCTMD’s Dispatch for February 2
      And the question on everyone’s mind: will Omicron end the pandemic? Nature reached out to several international experts to get their predictions. The consensus: Omicron will by no means be the last variant, but there are hopeful signs that variants may get milder with each iteration. Full transition to an “endemic” virus, however, will likely take decades.

  5. Blazer 5
    3 February 2022 at 6:02 pm

    Very thoughtful Ad.

    Just wondering regarding lies' to the hoi polloi…do you think anything has changed in that regard?

    How much can we trust …the 'authorities'?

    I always think of the conspiracy theory narrative.

    Say 10 years ago if someone made the allegation that there was an elite pedophile ring,involving royalty,top business figures,ex presidents and an array of the rich and famous…..it would be dismissed as a fantasy…yet now we know it was the real deal.

    What has really changed since Covid?

    The rich get richer and the poor get…duped..again.

    • Ad 5.1
      3 February 2022 at 6:08 pm

      I'd say this Labour government has increased trust in government effectiveness overall because it has rigorously applied (almost) all of what the collected official advice has been, and we have all reaped the world-leading results.

      Even today, after Ardern got through the 'thankyous', she got into the steps in a low-spin matter-of-fact way.

      In your point about a paedophile ring and royalty, the comparison would be to the current Abuse In Care commission – we've known the stories for a long time, but now we don't need to rely on the MSM to tell it: there is an official inquiry that is laying out the facts and stories one after the other. Less a conspiracy and more a confirmation of what had been circulating for years.

    • Stuart Munro 5.2
      4 February 2022 at 5:41 am

      What has been established beyond doubt is that we cannot trust the media. Once entrusted to educate and inform, these wretched hacks now seek to create conflict for notoriety, which they mistake for fame. The antivax and mandate nonsense has been cultured by these dangerous sociopathic fools. They no longer deserve the protections extended to the profession back when it did its job.

  6. Cricklewood 6
    3 February 2022 at 10:07 pm

    Why are we still bothering with mandates? At this point they do very little to prevent spread… only social discord and as the op points out lasting damage to the children of affected parents and thus society moving forward.

    • Patricia Bremner 6.1
      4 February 2022 at 1:16 pm

      The unvaccinated are allowed in, to work and do what is "Safe" in a pandemic. But they will need to do spit tests before entry as soon as our ordered tests arrive. They are a vector for variants and transmission meantime.

  7. Sanctuary 7
    4 February 2022 at 8:52 am

    Back in the 1980s I worked with a New Zealander in London who had not been "home" since the late 1950s. She loved NZ, talked about it all the time, loved Kiri Te Kawana etc. Except to me she was talking about a place I barely recognised from my parents time. She duly returned to NZ and hated the place, change meant her myth didn't meet the reality. She came back to London and completely changed her tune to one of intense dislike of NZ.

    I would suggest COVID has created a profound and accelerated cultural change that is going to collide headlong with the Kiwi diasphora when it comes home. The days of a person coming back to NZ with an unchallenged sense of casual superiority may be over, and a lot of these grounded Kiwi types won't like it one little bit. A new and aggressive local nationalism combined with the squandering of soft power by the major Anglosphere powers (where most of the Kiwi diasphora lives) means a lot of offshore Kiwis -are going to get quite a disorientating and alienating shock when they come back to NZ. To paraphrase Shakespeare,

    And gentlefolk in England now a-bed
    Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
    And hold their Kiwi pride cheap while any speaks
    That stood with the team of five million.

    I expect a slew of media stories from wounded bright young things back from London of how awful and insular and parochial and horrible NZ is now and how they can't wait to flee again.

    Time will tell how this cultural rupture will play out – but if other countries are any guide the clash between a physically and/or psychologically absentee ruling class and the rest seldom ends well.

    • Blazer 7.1
      4 February 2022 at 9:20 am

      Must be quite a number who settle in well here ,all the same.

      Not only returnees from the U.K but migrants from all over.

      The few times I watch T.V I am surprised by just how many spokespersons have noticeable accents,and the cultural diversity of those asked for opinion on the..streets.

      • Craig H 7.1.1
        4 February 2022 at 2:16 pm

        Definitely true, plenty of new residents in the past 10-15 years and most of them stick around long term.

  8. Bill 8
    5 February 2022 at 7:44 pm

    And we will own nothing and be happy. 😉 Unless….