Joanne Black

Politics triumphs over public health as the Government strives to “do something”.

We should have seen it coming, the overreaction by governments and the public to the Covid-19 outbreak. After all, we have been building up to it for years with an increasingly strident focus on safety and health.

I worked for a while in a building where staff were not allowed to carry a hot drink on the stairs, and signs in the stairwell instructed us to hold the handrail. It was not a lighthouse; it was an office building. When I demurred, pointing out that almost no one used the stairs anyway and that everyone who did was an able-bodied adult with cognitive function – admittedly some less than others but generally in the range of normal – there would always be people who’d say, “But it protects other people.”

The natural corollary of the direction society has taken is that we would eventually reach the point where, for everyone’s safety, we would be advised to stay home. We are now almost there and to disagree is the new form of political incorrectness.

It would be helpful if the coronavirus statistics were more reliable, even among those who have been tested. As the number of people in New Zealand who have contracted the disease increases, the media seems not to be dropping off those who have recovered. Therefore, the statistics rise inexorably, as though having Covid-19 is a permanent disability rather than an illness from which 99% of people recover.

Also, the fatalities overseas are reported as though without Covid-19, the thousands of people who have died would still be alive. Unlikely. Most of those who, unfortunately, have died were already sick, were elderly and frail, or both. It is people in that category who should be the focus of our best efforts to prevent the disease’s spread, because they are the most vulnerable.

The banning of large-scale events, even though the risk of transmission in casual settings is low, and the compulsory two-week isolation of people arriving in the country are more about politics than public health. The public is demanding that the Government “do something”, so it makes new rules. Yet each additional step reinforces to many people that they were right to be afraid. In this way, the downward spiral continues. The economic cost will be borne most heavily by those with the fewest resources and by all taxpayers, even if they reduce in numbers.

A couple of years ago, I visited Salem, Massachusetts, infamous for the witch trials and executions of women and men by a fearful community. Covid-19 is not fiction, but when we come to look back on this episode, it will sit easily in a chronological history of hysteria based on fear. It is innately human, but I would have hoped that New Zealanders in 2020 were more sensible than to strip supermarket shelves.

For those who might be more vulnerable, it makes sense to be vigilant. For the rest of us, the Ministry of Health’s advice about staying home if we are unwell, regular hand-washing and not licking the person next to us on public transport is, for now, almost all we need to do.

Flying home from Auckland this week, I waited in the bag-drop area with a woman who had just cut short her US holiday and was on her way home to Wanaka to selfisolate for two weeks. As we talked, she suddenly looked alarmed. “Do you want me to stand further away from you?” she asked. No. I didn’t. I was chatting to a stranger as I have done all my life and hope I will always do. I am cautious, but I am not afraid.

“Good thing we’re not flying anywhere!”

As we talked, she suddenly looked alarmed. “Do you want me to stand further away from you?”