Russell Bell: Dialling back Covid fear for a more balanced approach

Several hospitality businesses are reporting a downturn in trade as Omicron arrives in the community. Photo / 123RF

Opinion

With a case of Covid-19 being confirmed at Whanganui High School I saw first-hand the manifestation of what almost two years of having this virus front and centre does to a community.

Fear. And lots of it.

Even though the now dominant variant is, according to more and more experts, closer to the common cold than the black plague, locals started retreating from shops and hospitality venues and from my own observations stockpiling appeared to be occurring in my local supermarket.

A number of measures taken by businesses and organisations are eminently sensible, particularly when you have the situation of exposure to the vulnerable and immunocompromised.

But a lot of the withdrawal, from a consumer perspective, is down to fear or simply people not wanting to be subjected to lengthy isolation periods if caught in a web of viral contacts.

And while our leaders are trying their best to channel their inner Winston Churchill, likening Omicron to an imminent "enemy on our doorstep", the anxiety, worry and stress that is evident in our community makes you wonder if Joe Rogan will give up his lucrative podcast and re-launch Fear Factor here in New Zealand.

He'd have plenty of material.

This is in spite of the fact that our business community probably has a higher percentage of fully vaccinated people than the wider population.

And it is business (and SMEs in particular) that will bear the brunt of absenteeism caused by restrictions to flatten the curve.

My main concern is there is no date for when these restrictions will end. With winter approaching, there is less certainty even for essential businesses.

Because the requirements to qualify as an essential business are challenging, many businesses are stuck with the prospect of potentially having to shut down if staff are absent.

And we haven't even started to talk about caring for our kids - quite how teachers are not considered essential is unbelievable to me. The negative impacts on business and supply chains could be exponentially impacted by parents having to stay home and look after their children.

To its credit, the Government has announced a support package, which should assist retail and hospitality.

However, as was pointed out by an Auckland-based expert, the threshold of 40 per cent is higher than previous one, and if your trade is already down it will be difficult to prove a greater than 40 per cent drop against a lower January-February period.

That is before you include some kind of New Year shutdown and a couple of weeks of getting momentum back.

Of more impact will be tax relief and the ability to access short-term low-interest funding.

But, given all of this, the fear factor needs to be dialled back. What we need now is a balanced approach and a realisation that we (greater than 90 per cent of us) took the vaccines to "get back to doing the things we love" - and that includes being able to work, run our businesses and access the goods and services we require.

We also took the vaccine to protect ourselves and others.

Finally, we got vaccinated on the advice of our leaders.

And some experts are stoking the fear, posting how they are going to avoid hospitality venues and in the same breath criticising other experts who advocate for reduction of restrictions.

Churchill said, "Every man should ask himself each day whether he is not too readily accepting negative solutions". If we dial back the fear, we will likely find more workable and positive responses to the situation we face.