As we can see from case numbers today and most likely in days to come, this is going to become an increasingly more common experience. Even though it’s a new thing to do, and it’s never easy to tell someone you may have an infectious disease and that you may have been a situation where […]
Exiting the pandemic now is unrealistic Transitioning into what happens next is likely to be bumpy. What comes next – some people are talking about endemicity – is undefined. Whatever comes next will look very different in different places in the world, continuing to magnify and intensify inequities that pre-existed the pandemic. The strength of […]
We are moving from a place of what people can call a place of relative safe certainty to, hopefully, a place of safe ‘uncertainty’ again. We know what we can do to remain safer & slow down & reduce the clinical burden on people, the health system & containing outbreaks Understand that you have three […]
Omicron is making its way around the world, and this is hard. Hard for everyone who has been looking forward to engaging with life again, everyone who is tired, and everyone who just wishes this was over. I hear you, I see you. It is difficult to think about this, but we must. We won’t […]
Simple, clear messaging This is what has been what has been so successful in New Zealand’’s pandemic so far. This is partly because the goal we were aiming for was clear – and that was elimination. And the Alert Level system was the process through which we got to that outcome. It was a complete […]
The upcoming vaxxathon is the tonic that New Zealanders didn’t know they needed. But let’s break down why it makes sense from the perspective of some important psychological and social concepts, too. Collective / Individual action Although the ‘Team of 5 Million’ is a well-worn and accepted phrase, it’s fallen into disrepair in recent months. […]
Impending doom and an overwhelming sense of grief for all that we may have lost, even as the pandemic has played out over the last 20 months in New Zealand. This is the gist of just some conversations and expressions I’ve heard over the past few days. Why are we feeling like this? Why now? […]
We’ve all experienced the superpower. You meet someone and it turns out you both know someone in common. It can happen anywhere, in New Zealand, and even around the world when we travel. And it usually happens pretty early in the conversation too. It’s the social glue that is our superpower It brings us joy, […]
The uncertainty equation is changing. Before, we had the strategy of elimination and the comfort of the original, simple, Alert Level system. You’ve heard it before, and I’ll say it again: Delta is changing all this. We know that secondary stressors – the effects of all that we do to keep the primary threat (Covid-19) […]
In preparing for the next stage of the pandemic, there is a risk that we project what we wish to see for our futures, what we hope and desire, into a physical world that doesn’t care. It’s not that it doesn’t want to care: it can’t. The coronavirus pandemic doesn’t have feelings or desires, hates […]