Things we are starting to see
What happens when 40 per cent of staff and 25 per cent of pupils in a school get Covid?
Nothing much, apparently. When Masterton’s Hadlow Preparatory School closed recently due to a large outbreak of Covid, you’d be forgiven for thinking we’d declared the pandemic to be over.
While accepting we’ve had a few other things happening recently, it barely made the news.
WHO confirmed in January that Covid-19 remains a Public Health Emergency of International Concern that continues to need careful management to "mitigate the potential negative consequences".
A Covid-19 outbreak that forced the closure of a school should have been widely reported.
We have increasing representation of variants in New Zealand that are immune evasive, and more transmissible.
The effects of Covid are neurological, cardiovascular, immunological, systemic. It can affect every organ - for example there is growing suggestion that the virus affects the heart - with potentially lasting effects - and increases the risk of long-term brain problems.
Covid is keeping people out of work across the globe.
In schools, staff absences were at twice pre-Covid levels in the United Kingdom during winter.
A third of 15-year-olds have been persistently absent from school in England since September 2022 - statistics vastly above pre-Covid levels.
Reinfection with Covid-19 increases the risk of both acute outcomes and Long Covid - this is evident in unvaccinated, vaccinated and boosted people.
Long Covid affects children. More than a quarter of kids who get Covid-19 may develop long-term symptoms.
We refuse to consider communications that acknowledge that there is an emergency.
We refuse to accept that our crises are inextricably linked.
“The global health crisis we find ourselves in has forced us to dramatically change our behaviour… an equally dramatic and sustained shift in behaviour will be needed (for climate change).”
Despite very clear evidence that should compel us to do otherwise, solutions don’t seem to be a hot topic… yet.
Very happily, there are a number of experts, advocates and people with lived experience in Aotearoa across many spheres who are looking at the long term effects of Covid from multiple angles - and are thinking about what that means for us in the future.
There’s an event this week called the Covid & Work Symposium, a collaboration between several New Zealand universities which aims to discuss how we can promote safe, sustainable and supportive workplaces in a Covid world.
The symposium will also consider how workplaces can reduce the risks of Covid to their workforce and functioning of the business.
Full disclosure, I’m looking forward to speaking at this event as a lived experience advocate for Long Covid policy - and I’m deeply interested in hearing what the thought leaders in the room have to say about how we look towards the future.
Register here:
https://events.otago.ac.nz/covidandwork/
In Gisborne we are being urged to save water - not wash our hands! We still have over 100 cases of Covid19 in Tairaawhiti