Traffic lights for safety only
An inherent problem with systems created to divide people is that they do tend to be divisive. Traffic lights are intended to keep us apart in helpful ways, for everyone’s benefit. Those three vivid colours send clear messages, sequenced so we can transition between them fairly smoothly. As long as people understand and stick to the instructions, no unhappy conflict ensues.
Unfortunately it is far from luminously clear whether the Government’s new traffic light system for managing life with Covid will be anything like as well understood, and comparatively well obeyed, once the fast-approaching December 3 introduction date arrives.
That is an immediate concern, but there is another. We don’t really know the longterm impact of living with a system which, even if it works as intended, will leave tens of thousands of New Zealanders feeling ostracised for an unspecified, but significant, period. In a raft of different settings they will be classed, especially under the orange and red categories, as outsiders, to be denied entry.
Can’t be helped? Natural consequences of their actions, or inactions, when it comes to the nationwide agenda to protect ourselves and one another through vaccination?
It’s true that the commanding criterion must be public health, and that’s a point made repeatedly by government ministers. But this isn’t just a question of how much sympathy the unvaccinated deserve. It’s about the likely social implications of a prolonged environment in which feelings of resentment from one side, and scorn from the other, may well intensify. Whatever happens from there is unlikely to be good.
Each time a government minister expresses the hope that the prospect of exclusions may encourage people to get their jabs, they risk coming across as if they’re brandishing an electric cattle prod.
Which is why the point bears repeating that the traffic light system must be able to be honestly defended as a workable health protection system, and nothing more.
Another thing. Traditional traffic lights are intended to avoid not only mishaps within an intersection, but also ructions just outside it – snarl-ups, screeching brakes and abuse. Yet these things do happen at intersections. By comparison the Covid traffic light system is nowhere near as simple and there’s still a good deal of detail to come about the shades of meaning behind each colour.
Even if the details of the rules and protocols are well conceived and communicated sufficiently in advance of December 3, human nature being what it is, coupled with the kaleidoscopic distortions that can emerge through social media, in all likelihood there will be people who will present themselves outside venues holding simply unacceptable expectations. An unknown number will be ready to remonstrate with the luckless employees in charge of admission.
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Michael Wood says the police have been involved in the planning of the new regime, and would be ‘‘available if customers become unruly’’.
The risk for volatility has another potential complication. Many among those who are vaccinated will hold strong views of their own about the legitimacy of the complainants, and be minded to get stroppy in reply.
What’s needed here is not just that the introductory messaging is clear, but that the thinking behind it is clear. Otherwise, there’s the potential for sabre-toothed teething problems and divisions that will be very, very difficult to heal.
The system must be able to be honestly defended as a workable health protection system, and nothing more.