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It’ll take time to settle in to our new freedoms

Jon Johansson Wellington-based communications consultant

December is going to be very different. Traffic lights and vaccination passes will herald progress towards a new normal.

When the international border progressively (cough) starts to reopen between January and April 2022, that new normal will begin.

Even then, it’ll be longer still before we feel comfortable in that new normal. Until then, it’s three deep breaths, because transitions are never easy.

Our transition began when the Government was forced by events to abandon its elimination strategy. Elimination gave way overnight to acceptance that Covid is loose, now endemic – although it took longer for the Government to concede that was what its actions were effectively conceding.

But it was sudden. Too soon for some. Too long for others. For those who felt it happened too quickly, the change was neither adequately sign-posted, nor explained. These New Zealanders feel anxious.

Their previous protection and sense of security inside our elimination cocoon collapsed, just like that.

For others, the inevitability of this moment is long overdue. When the champagne corks go off in Auckland on December 15 there will be giddy scenes of freedom.

They’ve well and truly earned it and for many of them, it’s not before time. But for others north and south of Auckland, there will be mixed feelings. Some will welcome the business, others with embracing loved ones. Others will fear exposure as the virus spreads inexorably towards them.

We are seeing divergence in New Zealand’s experience of Covid. We now have vaxxed and the unvaxxed. Auckland’s lockdown 2021 survivors and the rest of the country. Ma¯ ori and nonMa¯ ori. Those working comfortably from home. Those not.

Those who have prospered through Covid and those who have not. And, not least, Kiwis who live here and those who don’t but want to come back.

Those divergences existed pre-Covid, but the cursed virus has placed so much stress on us they have been sharply accentuated. We see their rawness. In the news and in our lives.

One casualty of our heightened anxiety is the so-called Team of Five Million. It was once a unifying (and necessarily illusory) catchcry, but no more. The exact opposite in fact, as we have become very noisy and rude in expressing our various frustrations, and from all directions.

But we’re muddling through, step by exhausted step, limping towards Christmas. Christmas is our breather, a pause, before we face next year’s uncertainties. Summer should lift everyone. The plague loves the sun less. The psychological benefit to all of us of a few weeks of sun and sea, seeing family and friends, having a break from it all, having fun, cannot be underestimated.

Then, in the New Year, we need to learn to live with Covid, first here, then everywhere once the international border fully reopens, and that is a huge challenge.

A prediction. April 30 will not hold for opening up. It’s ridiculous and not the signal New Zealand should be sending to the rest of the world.

We lost our smugness this year after Delta slipped our leaky defences and the Government were neither ready, nor prepared for it. It’s been catchup ever since.

And it shows. We’ve heard from the podium a lot this week about ‘‘plans’’ and giving ‘‘certainty’’ so it’s not hard to guess what the focus groups are spitting out.

Because one of the most stunning aspects of the Government’s Delta response has been the Jacintegration of Labour’s narrative and decisionmaking.

Slow drip-fed announcements that ration freedoms in often confusing or contradictory ways, created a gap between the Government’s view of its own performance and the perceptual reality of everyday New Zealanders’ lived experience of them.

They seem less like leaders than followers, furiously reacting to events they needed to anticipate, but, as Director-General Ashley Bloomfield admitted, they had no plan B once Delta spread.

This week’s flurry of announcements is an attempt to regain command, and they may succeed (they have National’s latest diversion after all). But these past four months have changed the political dynamic. Labour, too, faces uncertainty next year.

The late historian Michael King said that most New Zealanders were ‘‘goodhearted, practical, commonsensical and tolerant’’. Our everyday encounters are now testing his positive view of us. A sharp rise in instore violence and aggression, verbal altercations between mask wearers and those not, protests, and the vitriol of partisans variously supporting or challenging government decision-making are all testament to how stressed we are as a people.

But I’m convinced we’ll get through this awkward transition. The sustained quality and commitment of our frontline healthcare workers caring for others, practical efforts by Ma¯ ori leaders to lift their whanau’s vaccination rates, and the otherworldly patience and common sense of the public speak to King’s optimism about the best of us.

Our direction of travel is towards greater freedom, to a new normal. So, the future is bright. And that’s not a bad thought to hold during the next wee while. And if you can’t, then three deep breaths.

One casualty of our heightened anxiety is the so-called Team of Five Million. It was once a unifying (and necessarily illusory) catchcry, but no more. The exact opposite in fact, as we have become very noisy and rude in expressing our various frustrations, and from all directions.

Focus

en-nz

2021-11-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-11-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

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