What we’ve learned in the Time of Covid

On December 31, 2019, a year and a day ago in New Zealand time, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission released a briefing on its website about a pneumonia outbreak in the city. It was the first public disclosure about a troubling new form of illness that attacked people’s respiratory systems.

One year on, and the whole world has heard about Covid-19, although it has proved elusive to our full understanding.

With the virus reaching the far corners of the world, touching down on the last continent of Antarctica this month, we have been able to observe the behaviours of the contagion as well as of the human response to it.

In New Zealand, we are truly fortunate to be watching from an advantageous vantage point.

What we have learned is science is the best defence against a severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (SARSr-CoV).

We have also learned preventing transmission is the best course. Countries that procrastinated about the best action showed us how widespread infection invites the virus to mutate.

We have learned that to lock down and sit tight, reducing physical contact, is the most effective method for breaking the chain of contagion.

Other lessons include finding out that the newly infected are less likely to infect others, with the transmission more likely to occur three days into infection when symptoms are showing. Thus, superspreader events are invisible diaspora.

One other lesson is that to dabble in denial is to open the door, not only to Covid-19 but also to misinformation, which spreads faster through social media than the essential facts. To dismiss a killer virus as “going to go away” is a clarion call to deniers.

Likewise, to argue about who caused the problem is to miss the point and incite intolerance. Earth is a pulsing, living, evolving host which will throw more biological challenges at us, just as it has done, over and over, in the past.

The best defence is to have a plan. And when flaws are found in the plan, to adapt. The virus is adapting in an attempt to survive and we must also.

When New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was asked at one of the earliest coronavirus media briefings whether she was afraid of the virus, she replied: “No, because we have a plan.”

This year, we have found the superheroes among us are not necessarily the captains of commerce, sporting achievers or politicians. We found our warriors in healthcare and rest home workers, supermarket staff and others in must-work occupations, and, particularly, scientists and medical experts who willingly co-operated to crack the code and create vaccines. And we learned so much about our own resilience, patience and fortitude. That wearing a mask is not protecting ourselves, but others. Washing hands and keeping track of where we go is only common sense.

On this eve of the first year in the Time of Covid, let’s embrace what we have learned and step into 2021 with confidence.