Linda Hall - Middle NZ: Keep up the good work and stay informed

Rawinia Everitt

Have you noticed that the Covid-19 ads are back on television and in the newspaper?

They have been absent for quite some time but in the last week have re-emerged.

A telling sign that the powers that be are a tad worried. I'm not surprised. Some parts of Australia are in strife with this virus seemingly out of control.

The problem with that is they are just so damn close to us.

Yesterday Health Minister Chris Hipkins reminded New Zealanders to have "constant vigilance". He said "we have to keep our pedal to the metal" when it came to locking in the gains and that we couldn't afford "for Covid-19 fatigue to set in".

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I know what he means as I'm sure you do. Every day Covid is on the television, in the newspapers and it can be stressful and frightening.

Some people — well actually many people find the best way to avoid stress and fright is to avoid or ignore it.

So instead of being glued to the telly at 1pm every day as we were in lockdown, we have understandably gone back to doing what we were doing before we heard the horrible word Covid-19.

It's the perfectly natural thing to do. Who wants to be worried and fretful all the time.
The trick now is to find a balance. We do need to go about our normal lives but we also have to be mindful of what's going on around us.

One of the most important things I think we all need to do is to stay home if we are not feeling well.

As we saw in Australia people didn't do that. They carried on going to work, hopping on and off public transport, going to their place of employment and thereby spreading the virus.

Now parts of the country face a six-week lockdown. That's going to be tough. We know because we have done it — well five weeks. But we did it — we do not want to do it again.

So Hipkins is reminding us that "every link in the New Zealand chain needs to be strong" and that we all need to sign into the Covid app.

Contact tracing is so important.

I'm loving the way Kiwis have embraced the Go Local call. I was in Taupo last weekend and the place was pumping. There was a marathon on and other events nearby. The restaurants and bars were full — in fact if you didn't have a booking you were lucky to find somewhere to eat.

It would be devastating if these places and our amazing cafes, restaurants, bars and businesses in Hawke's Bay had to close their doors again.

So, although we might want to close our ears and eyes to that C-19 word, we simply can't afford to.

It takes just one case outside managed isolation to ruin everything we have done.

Testing has been ramped up again — it's free so if you have symptoms get a test.

The good news yesterday was that there were no new cases and five of the previous cases were recovered.

Keep up the good work and stay informed.

* - Linda Hall is assistant editor at Hawke's Bat Today