Covid generation: From open world to pandemic - how young people have coped

Danielle Mourits, 24, spent 10 months in Malawi during the pandemic. Photo / Tyla Burton

A cancelled school ball, uncertainty around an overseas trip, new plans for a future. These are the ways Covid-19 has affected New Zealand's youth - a Covid generation. They remember when the reality of the pandemic hit home and how the virus shaped their life milestones. Many have turned a negative into a positive with new goals, new careers, and new love. Maryana Garcia reports.

Mount Maunganui-raised Danielle Mourits spent the first months of the pandemic working in a rural hospital in Africa. Photo / Supplied

I wanted to stay

Danielle Mourits, 24, has a clear memory of sitting at Sydney Airport in January 2020, watching aircraft crew walk by wearing masks.

"I just thought that was a bit weird."

The Mount Maunganui-raised Mourits was about to board her second flight in the longest solo trip of her life.

"My plan was to spend six months in Malawi and then go to Europe for the rest of the year, maybe walk the Camino de Santiago.

"It was a wide, open world."

In Malawi, Mourits had volunteered to work at a small, rural community hospital and health centre.

"The nearest town was about 25km away and the hospital serviced thousands of people."

Mourits had heard whispers of a "virus thing" in Asia, but everything seemed far away until a wave of Covid-19 infections hit Italy.

"We saw it on the news. There were mass graves and trucks of bodies leaving the hospitals."

Mourits remembered the nuns who ran the hospital saying, "If that virus comes here we're going to die like ants".

The hospital had one oxygen machine, no ventilators and no PPE gear.

"When the first case arrived in Africa, I can remember the energy in the room."

Then Mourits' parents contacted her with news the New Zealand Government was encouraging overseas Kiwis to return home.

"I had two days to decide if I was going to fly back," shes said.

"The people of that community didn't have that choice. I had come there to be one of them. I wanted to stay."

In the end, Mourits stayed in Malawi for 10 months. The pandemic's impact on the rural community was nowhere near as catastrophic as they had feared.

"I learned to accept where I was and make the most of it."

From her MIQ room back in New Zealand, Mourits applied to study nursing.

"I'm so excited to be a nurse. I'd love to be among the privileged ranks of those people who keep things going even in the midst of disaster."

Mourits is now in the second year of her studies. She can't wait to graduate and go back to Malawi.

"There's so much of the world I haven't seen and I want to go and see it.

Sebastian (centre), Lucas (left) and Carlos MacDonald said they were looking forward to going to school without wearing masks. Photo / Maryana Garcia

We missed out on everything

The MacDonald brothers - Sebastian, 11, Lucas, 10, and Carlos, 8 - can't remember too many details about how school worked before Covid-19.

But 11-year-old Sebastian can remember what he thought when the pandemic started.

"Everyone panicked," Sebastian said.

"I thought we were all just going to be locked inside our houses all day."

Lucas said the worst thing about lockdown was online learning.

"We missed out on everything."

Carlos, 8, said the lockdown was boring but he got confused about the differences between lockdown and isolation.

He was less uncertain about the part of pandemic living he hated most.

"Masks are horrible," Carlos said.

"[Next year I hope there are] no more masks."

When asked for a message for the future, Sebastian said: "Don't visit 2020 and if you do, get vaccinated."

Tauranga Boys' College head prefect Taine Larson says the pandemic has taught him to go with the flow. Photo / Supplied

Might as well have fun while I can

Two years ago, Tauranga Boys' College head prefect Taine Larsen, 17, was heading into Year 11 with determination and a long-term plan.

"I had started NCEA a year ahead and I was going into Level 2 with big academic goals," Taine said.

"I had mountain biking schools national champs in October."

Then Covid-19 hit and his goals were challenged.

"The first lockdown was definitely an eye-opener.

"It felt like it happened suddenly and then there was more time added to it."

For a goal-oriented young person, being confronted with the uncertainty of the future was a "shock".

"Nothing was set in stone. It was like you had to be prepared for everything."

Initially, Taine thought going online for school was "great".

"I could study and train and do what I wanted on my schedule," Taine said.

"But two weeks in it was getting tough to stay motivated, and I'm a people person so that was tough too."

While Taine found the experience scary at times, he felt it contained important lessons.

"It was a good thing for me to learn to go with the flow a bit more."

Two years on, Taine's goals are no less ambitious but he is also keeping his options open.

"I learned to try and maintain a positive and open-minded mentality," Taine said.

"Before, I was maybe overly focused and a bit too structured.

"I've realised I might as well have fun while I can."

Rotorua teen Sammy Carter is studying towards a Bachelor of Communication at Victoria University in Wellington. Photo / Supplied

In 2020, I thought, 'This is my year'

Stages, lights and time with friends.

These are some of the things Sammy Carter, 19, thought were in store for her final year of school at John Paul College, Rotorua.

"I was excited to become an adult and have more freedoms.

"I thought I was going to be able to do whatever I wanted and drive a car to school every day."

Carter was also ready to dive deep into drama with her sights set on competing for Performer of the Year and taking the stage in the national Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival.

"I was doing my teaching diploma for drama as well. I wanted to take on more of a mentoring role like other people had been for me."

But Covid-19 closed the curtains on Carter's dreams.

"It's silly looking back on it now, but when our ball was postponed it was such a huge thing.

"You think about it for months leading up to it and it was really gutting when that happened. That was my big wake-up call."

Carter described 2020 as surreal because the virus felt imaginary and "hadn't touched [my life] yet".

"In some ways, Covid didn't feel real until the first weeks of 2022."

Now, Carter is in her second year of a Bachelor of Communication at Massey University in Wellington.

She knows people who have been sick with the virus.

"I live right next to the testing centre and I could see people lining up for about 1km."

While the pandemic has made Carter more introverted, she also believes the experience of the past two years has had some positive impacts.

"I think I'm more adaptable and resilient. I think we all are.

"It's made me stronger because I've had to get back up so many times."

Twenty-five-year-old Maynard Scott believes Ashley Bloomfield deserves a knighthood. Photo / Supplied

We're never going to go back to normal

When Maynard Scott, 25, first heard the Chinese government had locked down Wuhan to slow the spread of a new virus, he realised the situation was serious.

"I thought this isn't like anything we've ever seen before."

But there were other concerns on Scott's mind at the time, being in the sixth and final year of a law and human resources degree at the University of Waikato.

"I was in the home stretch and I wanted the year to go as smoothly as possible."

Scott moved back home to Tauranga the day before a state of national emergency was declared.

"The real impact was the isolation," Scott said.

"I had taken it for granted that I could just drive around and that went out the window."

A few months later there was another lockdown and Scott had to move again, this time to Waihī as he started to hunt for fulltime work.

"There were not a lot of jobs out there to apply for. People didn't know whether they could hire or not."

Still, Scott considered himself lucky. Between lockdowns and remote working, Scott met his fiancee, an Air New Zealand pilot.

"She would have been working. I would have been in Hamilton.

"It would have taken a long time for us to notice each other. Dating would have been harder."

Reflecting on the past few years, Scott said: "We're never going to go back to normal and I hope the new normal means facing challenges together and acting quickly for the good of people.

"I also hope Bloomfield gets a knighthood."