Snapshot of a crisis
Kiwis have found their way of life upended by the global pandemic. Five New Zealanders from different walks of life offer an insight into their ‘new normal’.
and deliveries. But other people who are new to the region, they don’t have that support.
There was a lady who said she wanted to take her dog for a walk so I thought, ‘‘we need to be able to notify others that we are in isolation’’. I suggested that people should wear fluro, or some bright colours, so that others know to give you a wide berth.
The Health Ministry says you need to keep a two to three-metre radius from people and that’s very easy to do if you’re walking your dog. Other people can easily step off the path and give you some space.
I was trying to think of something people would have in their wardrobe that they don’t have to go out and buy. Someone might have a bright T-shirt or a cycling fluro vest . . . there’s something I’m sure people would have in their homes. I made a hashtag, #brightforiso because I thought that if we share that and then other people would know and it might . . . get a bit of following and traction.
I’ve been working from home as well as I can. It has its perks, I don’t have to put any make-up on to go to work.
CREST CLEAN’S GYANESHWAR DASS IS NOTICING A NEWFOUND APPRECIATION FOR ONCE INVISIBLE CLEANERS IN WELLINGTON.They’re
noticing now, what we are doing. Before it was, ‘‘oh the cleaners are here, they will do their job and then they will go’’. Now they stand by and ask ‘‘what are you are doing?’’ They’ll come up and say, ‘‘oh you are using this, and using that’’ or ‘‘how are you doing that?’
People are very grateful. They come and compliment me.
I’ve been in the business for three years, I work with my wife. I’m new to this virus thing. It is busy – we have to do some extras. Door handles, tables, walls, glass panels, everything. All the touchables.
I usually start at 3.30pm and work until midnight. At the moment I’m cleaning three schools, two offices, an industrial building and an entertainment centre. Before, we were spending two hours at each place, now it is another 45 minutes or one hour extra . . . Now we are working until 2am, something like that.
The nervous part about my health is there, but we have good equipment and health and safety . . . Health and safety is important to me too, we wash our hands, wear gloves, sometimes masks.
School principals are calling me and telling me what they are doing, too – putting sanitisers in
classrooms. The teachers are really looking after the kids.
I very much feel a sense of responsibility. . . If I miss one table and a kid is sitting there, anything can happen.
Now parents realise how important cleaners are for the school. In the evening, if a parent comes to pick their kid up, they stop to say hi. They say, ‘‘oh, you guys are the cleaners’’ – yep, we’re the cleaners, we’re looking after your kids.
ASHIKA ROBIN, 11, HAS BEEN LEARNING ABOUT CORONAVIRUS AT RHODE STREET SCHOOL IN HAMILTON.
We just watched a video today and we’ve also been learning about the coronavirus. It starts from, like, if we touch our face or it goes into our nostrils and our eyes and our mouth. It goes down and sticks onto our lungs. It makes it harder for us to breathe. We’ve been told to wash our hands before and after we eat, and when we touch something that other people have touched.
I’m kind of scared but our school is . . . trying to keep us safe. At home, my mum doesn’t want me coming with her to shop or going to the supermarket. She doesn’t want me going out on the weekends. I only go to my violin lessons. Every morning, my mum wipes the door knobs and everything we touch a lot, and wipes down the counter. Mum always puts on the news and she tells me to be careful and not go near people who might be sick.
RHODE STREET SCHOOL PRINCIPAL SHANE NGATAI HAS UNIQUE CHALLENGES AS A LEADER IN HIS COMMUNITY.
I’m a boy scout. It’s all about being prepared. Plan for the worst, hope for the best. That’s pretty much where we’re at. But also reduce the anxiety for our children and our parents by continuing as normally as we can. We won’t be having assemblies any more because it’s more than 100 people. We’re just being creative.
We’re sending bags of apples and pears home because we’ve harvested heaps, just building up their food supply. For a lot of our families, they can’t just go down to the supermarket and buy bulk. They can’t afford it. They can’t isolate themselves as well as more affluent families. They live in overcrowded situations already. There’s the worry that they could lose their jobs.
The teachers are modelling hand-washing, all that sort of stuff. When they sneeze – distance. Not shaking hands. I’m thinking about administration staff maybe working from home
My staff, there are some stress levels . . . they have got kids as well, at high school and all sorts of things. It’s about supporting them as much as supporting our kids.
We are producing resources to go home with every child. I’m talking hard copy, majority of it, because we did a survey earlier in the week and a lot of our parents don’t have devices or the internet. So we are sending devices home, if it comes to going home, with each family. We’re also sending our resources, like our journals. Our library books are no good on the shelf here if the kids are at home.
Those who have got internet, we use Google Classroom. That’s like an online classroom. We’re planning for not if, but when the kids study from home.
JEROEN JONGEJANS OWNS WHANGA¯ REIBASED DIVE! TUTUKAKA, WHICH RUNS DIVE TOURS OF THE POOR KNIGHTS.
We’ve had a large number of cancellations. The South Pacific Underwater Medical Society annual conference was cancelled just a few days ago. Just that one cancellation resulted in more than 35 charter days being lost, after a year of preparation. Every day now, we notice cancellations and fewer bookings: 60 per cent of our business is from international visitors, so no surprises here. Team morale is good now – the actual virus and impact hasn’t hit us yet. It feels like a large wave is coming our way, but we are not sure when it will hit. Until that time we are still going out to the Poor Knights.
The Government stimulus package is a positive step. The tourism industry, up until now, has been the largest export earner and is a large employer throughout the country, so we are all affected by this. We are going from areas that experienced ‘‘over-tourism’’ to severe depletion.
Most people and staff have relatives overseas – including some trying to get back, in a world where the options are changing daily. The stress levels of those caught in and on the edge of this event are huge. The best thing we can do is learn from the experiences overseas – stay calm and smart, and look out for each other.
We are lucky to be living on an island where we have a near single entry point. We have a health system, a distribution system and an organised society. I’m very worried about all the refugees in the world that have none of what we have available; in all of this, we are very lucky and able to have some control over the uncontrollable.
As told to Sophie Trigger, Denise
Piper, Libby
Wilson and Kelly Dennett.
Your family was coping well with coronavirus — until this week. Now your 10-year-old is scared to go to his best friend’s birthday party; your phoneaddicted partner can’t stop talking about it; your elderly mother calls every hour because she has a cough.
Even though coronavirus has only grazed our shores statistically, it’s moved in on us psychologically, which means it has the potential to splinter families at a time when we most need to pull together.
Inevitably, family members feel and express anxiety differently. This is due to age, genetics, personality, life experiences – or just individual ways of dealing with uncertainty.
It can mean even families that normally function well may find themselves out of sync: distracted, easily upset, arguing over small things, behaving in out-of-character – even irrational – ways. And conflict escalates, as people are forced together for
MARK TAYLOR/STUFF (left) seen in stark contrast to Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s awkwardness during the Australian bush fires, or US President Donald Trump’s baffling inconsistencies amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Crisis response psychologist Dr Maureen Mooney says public gestures of kindness have a cascade effect, and they have to come from the top down. ‘‘So having a leader, for example in the Christchurch shootings, saying ‘they are us’, just brought a community together.’’
Unkindness, such as looting during disasters, or stockpiling food or products, forcing others to without, is rooted in psyche,
Mooney says.
‘‘The reason I think that some people are being individualistic and fighting over the toilet paper situation is perhaps, when people first feel a threat, they protect the people closest to them. Getting toilet paper or tinned tomatoes may be an initial reaction, because when we are faced with a threat we are not too rational at first.’’
Waikato business owner Troy Hillard had offered his housewashing company’s services free to members of his community.
When the Sunday News spoke to him Wash Rite had 115 playgrounds on its list which Hillard believes will take about a week-and-a-half between paid jobs.
The idea to offer free house washes was a ‘‘no-brainer’’ as his business has one of the largest stocks of chlorine – more than 30,000 litres – in the country. He’s ex-Army, and for the past five years, he’s offered his services for free to other ex-army members on Anzac Day. ‘‘The community helped us become successful so this was a way to give back.’’
By the end of the week New Zealand’s borders had closed to non-citizens and non-residents, mass gatherings were banned, more workers were toiling from home, and streets were emptying in an effort to combat coronavirus. For Geoff Rice, kindness won’t kill the pandemic, ‘‘but it will help us to cope with it, and to come through, whatever the cost, with our humanity and values intact.’’
Additional reporting: DonnaLee Biddle