Covid backlash after Little done

TALKING POLITICS

OPINION: While anti-vaxx sentiments remain a constant, the attitudes to Covid among the wider population have changed almost as much as the virus itself has mutated.

As Bloomberg News recently pointed out, the public’s initial hope was that maybe the virus could be avoided by a combination of diligent handwashing, mask wearing and social distancing. That attitude shifted last year to a more fatalistic sense that sooner or later, the virus would probably come knocking on the door.

This year though, the realisation has begun to sink in that the Covid threat may not be a one-time, done and dusted experience. As Bloomberg News also put it, Covid is now being seen as ‘‘a persistent health hazard that can infect people multiple times, each time inflicting cumulative damage and increasing the odds of longduration symptoms’’. The optimism that Omicron might be just one of those ‘‘well, that wasn’t so bad’’ experiences may have been misplaced.

Unfortunately, the ability of the pervasive Omicron BA.5 variant to break through the immunity shields of vaccination – while also bypassing some of the natural immunity conferred by prior infection – has been sending New Zealand’s case numbers soaring, amid increased rates of hospitalisation and death. Not surprisingly, there has been a political backlash.

Arguably, it was entirely predictable that opening up to Covid just as the new Omicron variants arrived would place extra strains on an already exhausted, badly understaffed and chronically underfunded health system, just as the country headed into winter.

Regardless, there was little sign of pre-emptive forward planning. The Government’s grudging response to the current emergency has been in striking contrast to the decisively proactive way it handled the arrival of the pandemic in 2020, even though that had involved unprecedented lockdowns at the border, and across entire communities.

Now, Health Minister

Andrew Little seems unable to concede that a crisis exists, much less call together all the major players such as the health sector groups, Immigration officials, business and community leaders etc. Doing so would have helped our frontline health workers to feel supported, and let them know that everything possible was being done to send extra resources into the fray.

The pressures that Covid is imposing on the health system may not be transitory. Besides the dimly understood condition called long Covid, the emerging scientific evidence on reinfection indicates a potential for cumulative harm – to the heart and brain in particular – from successive infections.

Moreover, via a process called ‘‘immune imprinting’’, the body’s natural immunity may get locked into creating antibodies fit for fighting the earlier variants, but less suitable for combating the new targets.

In sum, the facile optimism being voiced by some politicians that we should just toughen up and learn to live with Covid seems misplaced. It would be equally facile for the Government to assume that some voluntary mask wearing, free test-kits and greater access to booster shots – of a vaccine that was not formulated to combat the now prevailing variants – will be sufficient until things return to normal.

Unfortunately, the changes that Covid is making to our society – and to the funding and staffing needs of the health system – look like being permanent.

Health Minister Andrew Little seems unable to concede that a crisis exists, much less call together all the major players.