The Covid-19 challenge
I’ve been observing myself over the last month, tracking my reactions to the news of the coronavirus and its inexorable journey from China across the world, and its eventual arrival in New Zealand. I suspect that my responses are not too dissimilar to those of many other New Zealanders.
Until news of the virus broke, I had never heard of the Chinese city of Wuhan, or Hubei, the province it’s located in. While I felt sympathy for the workers in the seafood market affected by the virus, the problem seemed geographically and psychologically remote.
If any anxiety squirmed its way into my consciousness, I quelled it by remembering that internationally, over 61,00 died of ordinary flu in 2018, or that in China, around 1.6 million die each year from air pollution-related illnesses.
It seemed less remote as the number of deaths and infections rose and the virus spread beyond China. Then my brother, who travels internationally in his work, visited Nelson after holidaying in Thailand – and the threat of the virus crept closer.
As I hugged him hello, an unwelcome thought flickered through my mind: he could be carrying the virus, and I could be embracing my demise. When he left for Vietnam, en route to his home in England, a thorn of worry about his ongoing welfare lodged itself in me.
The virus hit South Korea. My daughter’s father lives in Seoul. The virus hit Ireland. My daughter’s in-laws live there. The virus hit the US. My kind exhusband has family in Oregon. A good friend, on the eve of a trip to see family in the US, began to wonder if she would be allowed to re-enter New Zealand. The virus hit Italy, and another friend began revising plans for a long-planned trip there.
Even so, I mostly managed to stave off anxiety. Denial is a wonderful thing. Then, while out walking the dog, I sneezed a couple of times.
The involuntary silliness of sneezing reminded me of the fun we used to have as kids chanting, ‘‘Ring-a-ring o’ roses, A pocket full of posies’’ – spinning until we were dizzy, throwing ourselves theatrically to the ground at the final line, ‘‘A-tishoo!
A-tishoo! We all fall down’’.
This in turn led me to wonder if it’s a game my three-year-old granddaughter plays at her daycare centre in Auckland, where her playmates are European, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Pasifika. This, and the fact that the centre celebrates Christmas, Diwali and Chinese New Year and acknowledges Ramadan as well as Anzac Day, has always seemed to me a wonderful thing.
But walking by the Matai, and with a terrible jolt of fear, I suddenly saw this happy mix of kids differently: as a potential source of contagion.
While one part of me thought this is how xenophobia and racism are born, another part of me couldn’t stop obsessing about how even ordinary flu and childhood diseases run like wildfire through kindergartens and schools.
I thought of my granddaughter, her playmates, her caregivers, my daughter and her partner, their friends, their neighbourhood, their city. This city. This country.
That was the moment my denial collapsed. The virus was no longer over there, but here. It was not them, but us. How to act in the face of something so frightening, especially when, like me, you are not very brave?
I stayed away from social media. Instead, I looked for media reports for clear information about the virus, its transmission and incubation period, and how to protect yourself and others if you become infected.
Even so, I became so hyper-alert to news about the virus that I injected sinister implications into a headline about the Ruby Coast Arts Trail, substituting ‘‘germs aplenty on arts trail’’ for ‘‘gems aplenty on arts trail’’.
I tried to adhere to the AA philosophy of taking one day at a time, rather than allowing imagined catastrophic futures to overtake me.
I began washing my hands. A lot. Even when I was the only one at home, and hadn’t left the house all day. I noted as I lathered up how easily this could slip into an obsessive compulsion.
My anxiety accompanied me to the supermarket, where, after I had bought the things on my shopping list, I couldn’t quite resist throwing a few extra cans of beans into my trolley.
American Baruch Fischhoff, a psychologist and former president of the Society for Risk Analysis, says panic buying is much more likely when people have little faith in their government, and feel that they must take care of themselves. It seemed a good omen that the supermarket was almost empty.
Reassuringly, Fischhoff says that the kind of panic which overcomes normal, reasoned responses is fairly rare. Most people band together in a crisis, he says, citing as an example the orderly evacuation from the horror of the Twin Towers, when ‘‘people were brave and very orderly’’.
We are all in this together. Covid-19 challenges us to manage our very natural and understandable individual fears and act for our mutual good. Can we do it?
Read more at greyurbanist.com.
Covid-19 challenges us to manage our very natural and understandable individual fears and act for our mutual good. Can we do it?