Dr Phil Shoemack, Medical Officer of Health for Toi Te Ora Public Health. Photo / File
Dr Phil Shoemack, Medical Officer of Health for Toi Te Ora Public Health. Photo / File
COMMENT
As New Zealand approaches the end of the alert level 4 lockdown, Toi Te Ora medical officer of health Dr Phil Shoemack reflects on the progress made so far in the Bay of Plenty region.
The New Zealand Government has followed public health advice and decided that hunkering downat home will be a crucial element of the response to reducing the impact of the Covid-19 virus on Aotearoa.
Dr Phil Shoemack, medical officer of health for Toi Te Ora Public Health. Photo / Supplied
The "lockdown", as we're calling it, is only one element of the response which also includes closing our border, reminding everyone about hand-washing and safe cough and sneeze etiquette, keeping our physical distance from others, and staying home to help break the chain of transmission.
In making us all go home and stay home, the Government has put a priority on the health and wellbeing of people above other considerations. It's an acknowledgement that, at the core, society is about people.
Of course, the Kiwi version of lockdown isn't as restrictive as it could be compared with other countries, and for many of us, nor is it proving to necessarily be as negative an experience as we might have anticipated.
We're also fortunate that, as a nation, we've been able to learn from the good and bad experiences of others as Covid-19 arrived in New Zealand a few weeks behind most of the world.
We're all having to make decisions that we've never made before, with some of them turning out to be extremely important. Who do we want in our bubble was one of the big ones - and we didn't have much time to figure it out. How much flour and toilet paper will we need may have seemed important at the time, but by comparison, it was fairly petty.
So with those decisions behind us how are we doing?
The experts seem to think the lockdown is reducing the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on New Zealand. Plus, staying close to home and spending time with loved ones is having some really neat consequences.
The pace of life has noticeably slowed but we haven't let the physical distancing message get in the way of improving connections with each other. We're walking and biking instead of using the car. Many of those walks and bike rides are with our bubble mates and we're having fun spending quality time together. We're exploring places close to home that we've never been to before.
We're meeting people in our neighbourhood, from a safe distance of course, that we've never spoken with before. The dog has never been fitter, or had so much attention. The neighbourhood is quieter without all those cars, and the roads are finally safe for children to ride their bikes.
We're eating better without all that junk food and even the oldies are learning how to stay connected at a distance with the positive aspects of social media and video-links.
While there is still much water to go under the bridge, and it will be a while before we, and our economy, are back on our own two feet again, when we look back at 2020, let's make sure we remember all the good stuff that came out of a really difficult situation.
