What the judges said

Five-Year Plan by Tate Fountain of Tauranga was highly commended in the 2020 story competition in the under-25 category.

Author and judge Amy McDaid: ‘‘Two friends with a history reconnect after five years. Five-Year Plan is both deceptively simple and deftly told, with sentences so beautifully clean they shone. Sharp dialogue brims with the unspoken, and the characterisation shows a wise sophistication. Plus it has some great touches of humour. I really enjoyed this story. This is a skilled writer who knows their craft. I reckon I’ll be spotting their name on the bookshop shelves one day.’’ short

Next week marks the first anniversary of our first reported Covid case in New Zealand. In the year since, the world seems to have been following the script of a Hollywood disaster film.

So it’s with relief that this weekend finally marks a new chapter; the rollout of the vaccine in New Zealand. Is it the beginning of the end of the pandemic as everyone is saying? After the past 12 months, I think we’re all wary of plot twists. So I’ll settle for, ‘‘let’s hope so’’.

One of our first cover stories about Covid ran just days after that first case, when we spoke to University of Otago epidemiologist Michael Baker about options that might be on the table should there be an outbreak here. Some of his scenarios – such as sequestering the elderly to protect them – seemed so unlikely and outlandish that I worried people would complain we were scaremongering.

As it turned out, nothing Baker suggested was as radical as what happened next, when the Government slammed the borders shut and closed the country down for six weeks.

But here’s something else Baker told us back in March last year, before that first lockdown; New Zealand’s strong social cohesion, and faith in government, meant we were well placed to implement effective policies against the pandemic. Those words turned out to be prophetic; in all the literature that has since examined New Zealand’s success in handling this pandemic, it’s that social cohesion and faith in government that stands out.

Will that be tested again with the vaccine rollout? The world getting back to some semblance of normal depends on vaccine take-up being spread evenly across the globe. There are forces working against that; vaccine coverage is far from universal, and rich nations are hoarding vaccines that poor nations desperately need. There’s a risk of vaccine poverty slowing down the re-opening of global borders or, worse, being weaponised to stifle the flow of people between rich and poor countries.

But domestic forces are equally a concern. There will always be people with genuine concerns about the safety of vaccines; given the speed with which these have been developed, it’s legitimate for people to have questions about safety and efficacy.

And then there are the crackpots and conspiracy theorists. If you haven’t heard the one about the vaccine altering your DNA, or that it contains a microchip, probably put there by Bill Gates, which is somehow linked to a 5G tower, you probably haven’t been checking your social media feed.

But it feels like there’s a seed of doubt even among those who would otherwise happily vaccinate for measles or flu. I’ve heard more than one person say they’ll probably get vaccinated for the greater good, even though they are still unsure if it is safe.

Experts have warned that vaccine hesitancy could prevent the country from reaching the critical mass of immunised people needed to safely re-open the borders. That could be a real flash point between the haves and the have-nots.

It could also have tragic consequences, as we saw with the measles outbreak in 2019 thanks to low immunisation rates.

So the government and health authorities still have a big job to do ahead of the vaccine’s rollout to the rest of the country later this year.

I’ve heard more than one person say they’ll probably get vaccinated for the greater good, even though they are still unsure if it is safe.