Let’s stay the distance this Easter weekend
Last Saturday night my nephew’s wife gave birth in a New York hospital. Her room overlooked a Covid-19 makeshift ward. The birth of my great-nephew has brought a welcome sign of hope and renewal in this Covid-19 reality we find ourselves in. To endure labour surrounded by death and the spectre of disease is an act of bravery that many women are now facing.
Bravery takes many forms. Frontline medical staff, supermarket workers, frazzled parents at home frantically trying to cope with demands of work (or worse - job loss) while keeping a brave face, so their children can have some degree of normality in their lives – are all acts of bravery in this strange new world.
It’s these acts of courage I recall when I make a plea this Easter to ‘‘Stay Home – Save Lives’’.
As the novelty of the daily teddybear hunt grows dim, never before has so much ridden on our ability to see the long game.
We have endured two weeks in level four lockdown. That’s the equivalent of 14 lifespans for a mayfly, whose average life expectancy is 24 hours. For kids trapped inside and denied playground access, each day must seem longer than the next.
If you’re like me and still working, then it becomes crucially important to find downtime amid this chaotic existence. There’s only so many times you can invite your husband to a Zoom meeting to serenade him with a rousing rendition of Aretha Franklin’s ‘‘Who’s Zoomin Who’’ and it remain funny.
As one week in lockdown drags on to more, here’s why you need to follow the rules.
1. An awful lot of people are putting their lives on hold to ensure this strategy works. The economic impact of this lockdown is going to have knock-on effects for years. We need to make sure we all work hard so level four lockdown does not drag on. My new mantra … ‘‘If in doubt…don’t go out.’’
2. While we prepare our hospitals for the potential influx of Covid-19 patients, some elective surgery has been cancelled, as has some cancer diagnosis. If you go out and flout the rules you are potentially prolonging the anxious wait for medical treatment for groups who need it. That’s simply not fair.
3. Going out unnecessarily makes contact tracing much more difficult. Stay local, and make sure that street gatherings are conducted at the end of your driveway.
4. People’s lives will be irreparably changed if we experience a rise in deaths. Families will be torn apart. As a result of the 1918 flu epidemic my grandfather entered into an arranged marriage with his deadwife’s sister (whose husband had also died of the Spanish flu). It was a novel solution to ensure the survival of both families who had young children at the time. My mother, the result of that blended union, always keenly felt the impact of the flu on her life. Tragedy unites, but it does so in strange ways. Let’s stay in this Easter to minimise this sort of loss and suffering which has long-term impacts on mental health.
At the time of writing we have no clusters in the Nelson Tasman region. We can be proud of the fact that according to Google data, we are punching ahead of our weight in terms of staying home from shops, pharmacies and parks. I have never been more proud to serve this community than at this time.
We can do this. But we need to do it together. We need to stay in. Follow the rules.
Let’s be the first region in New Zealand to come out of level four lockdown. Isn’t that worth staying in this Easter for?
Dana Wensley is a Tasman District councillor
We can do this. But we need to do it together.