A return to the ‘old normal’

In the absence of much else happening at Parliament, the local political story of the week seemed to be whether it was wise of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to appear unmasked with nearly 120 youth MPs.

The mob of enthusiastic would-be politicians posed for a snapshot with Ardern, Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro and three MPs. Only one person was visibly wearing a mask in the photo and that was one of the youngsters.

Former prime minister Helen Clark was among the critics. Clark said it was ‘‘indeed shocking’’ to see such mass unmasking when New Zealand was in the grip of a pandemic surge. But a spokesperson for Ardern said the masks just came off briefly for the photo.

Some might argue this became a story only because it was a slow news week. But it also expresses something important about the shifting responses to Covid rules and regulations. Commentators who once thought the Government was heavy-handed now warn the public about being complacent.

Covid-19 has not been defeated. Instead, it has evolved. It may become an enemy we must learn to live with, and it was in that vein that epidemiologist Michael Baker compared masks to seatbelts in cars.

But can the public be brought back onboard? It is hard to imagine there would be much buy-in for a return of lockdowns, mandates and even QR codes. But greater mask-wearing is an unquestionably sensible and easy step.

Which brings us to the new schools policy. This weekend’s ‘‘welcome back’’ emails from principals to students and parents will have some significant news. Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti has written to school boards ‘‘strongly recommending’’ that schools review and enforce their mask policies, meaning that masks should be worn indoors by all students in year 4 and above, with only a few exceptions. That is an escalation from the previous setting, which only ‘‘encouraged’’ mask-wearing.

Ten million child masks will be made available, along with adult-sized ones, and the new guidelines will be in place for at least the first four weeks of term 3. This followed Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield and Covid-19 Response Minister Ayesha Verrall’s recent reassertion of the importance of mask-wearing.

Does the backtrack on masks in schools indicate the Government got it wrong when it relaxed the guidelines in April? The decision to merely ‘‘encourage’’ masks was criticised by Disability Rights Commissioner Paula Tesoriero and health experts, including paediatrician Dr Jin Russell, who argued that masks should be recommended until at least the end of winter. Russell warned three months ago that New Zealand was heading into a particularly difficult winter, due to influenza and other seasonal viruses appearing while Covid-19 continued to circulate in the community.

The University of Canterbury’s Michael Plank and the University of Auckland’s Siouxsie Wiles made similar comments at the time. Like Baker, Wiles made the important but not very palatable point that we will probably not return to the pre-Covid world any time soon. Mask-wearing may become part of a new normal.

In hindsight, we can see that April looked like a false dawn in the battle against Covid-19, when case numbers were slowly but steadily declining and before the new Omicron variants unleashed yet another wave of the pandemic. But it is equally clear that the voices of the health experts who sometimes seem to have become as familiar to us as family members over the past 21⁄2 years were not heard as clearly as they should have been.

Greater maskwearing is an unquestionably sensible and easy step.