Cold comfort facing up to Covid

Life in lockdown shouldn’t be life in a vacuum. Some people choose to lower the blinds to the stream of well-meaning advisories and near constant updates in the media. And who can blame them. There’s not many flecks of gold in the gravel. If anxiety levels haven’t already started to reach critical then facing the daily arm wrestle of fact vs speculation isn’t going to do much to pull that back.

But a little reassurance goes a long way.

Jacinda Ardern is presenting a masterclass in this every single day.

She has the luxury of daily televised media briefings and Q and A sessions but even after most of us have clocked off and turned to whatever distractions are at hand to escape the cold Covid reality, she is sending out Facebook dispatches from her home, in her trackies, trying her level best to offer reassurance and building the sense that we’re forming a united front against this.

Do as I do. You get the strong feeling that one of the things that disappointed her the most about David Clark’s behaviour was his unwillingness to front foot this crisis.

This is not wartime. We’re not forced to huddle round the wireless for any scrap of news to hang on to.

We have the magic of the internet now which is available to all and consumed by most. This isn’t news to politicians and public figures who, when it suits them, are all too keen to exploit every conduit open to them – it’s embedded in their code.

We have seen some of Nelson’s own city councillors near carpet bombing social media with a mix of the facile and useful, and MP Nick Smith is busy channelling Mr Rogers on Facebook with his couch chats.

So why then is the Nelson mayor seemingly missing in action? If you tune into the Mix Online Nelson Radio 104fm at 8.15am, Mondays, Wednesdays and

Fridays, Mayor Reese is on air sharing the council’s Covid-19 news, any changes to services and ideas for keeping busy at home.

Who doesn’t enjoy warm and breezy missives from morning radio to start the day on a positive sort of note? But in real terms it’s about as useful as a birthday card to a drowning man.

The mayor is just as locked down as the rest of us and she has a lot of plates to keep spinning. The council is doing a lot of work behind the scenes. You just have to log on to its Facebook page to see that.

The homeless are being given shelter, rates rises may be stalled and relief is being sought for a haemorrhaging hospitality industry. It’s all laudable stuff.

But part of the gig is communication and never more so than in a crisis. Not just in election year but constantly talking to the region, showing leadership and offering reassurance with whatever means are at hand whether through the local media or social media platforms like Neighbourly.

Lockdown is in limbo sure enough but there is no room for complacency. The end of our forced confinement is not going to be a new dawn full of light and promise.

For most of us it’s going to mean climbing out of the bunker to face the real pain. For some this will be like staring into the abyss.

As a region we’ll be looking for leadership to get through it. A more publicly visible mayor would be a pretty good start.