When the centre cannot hold
I recently wrote a complaint, and then gave up on sending it.
It was about a NZ Herald opinion article published 30th July - “It feels like we have a national case of long-Covid” by John Roughan.
My concern was that by falsely equating Long Covid patients with a mood of “being in a funk” the article reinforced the misinformation that Long Covid is just being a bit tired.
Given that the prevalence of Long Covid is somewhere between 1 in 10 and 5 in 10 and that over 200 symptoms have been associated with it, ranging from tremors, to brain fog, to tachycardia (heart palpitations), with impacts that include the inability to walk long distances, inability to work, and vastly reduced quality of life, I would have hoped that Long Haulers in Aotearoa wouldn’t be reduced to a punchline for the sake of making a point about people being tired of the pandemic - there are many ways of making that point without punching down.
I would also have hoped given NZ Herald’s own reporting on Long Covid that the writer would have picked up an understanding that would have been sufficient enough to deter from a false comparison and a headline that trivialised and mocked the experience of thousands of New Zealanders.
The article also seemed to suggest that fit, healthy people may weather the virus better which is simply untrue. Fit and healthy people are not at any less risk of consequences from Long Covid, and can suffer long-term impacts even from a “mild” case.
A published opinion that being cautious, listening to experts, trying not to inflict mass illness and severe long-term consequences on the population is somehow “uncool” felt like a decision requiring this emoji in response: 😬 - at the very least.
It was an irresponsible take, and I had reach outs from more than a few people willing to sign their name to a complaint.
But then we decided we might go to Green - with a possible scrapping of the traffic light framework altogether, and vastly decreased public health protection.
So, with huge apologies to everyone on board the bus, I got really depressed at the thought of even trying to complain.
The narrative at the moment is “we don’t hear people fretting about the pandemic.”
I hear people fretting about it every day.
People who are immunocompromised. People who have older loved ones. People who worry about their kids going to school without masks being enforced. People who have been reinfected and are experiencing a harder, lingering second or third round. People who have been battling Long Covid for over two years, and the quickly growing number of people joining them. People who know that Covid-19 is categorically not the flu.
But the narrative still remains “Why mask? Why not just get back to normal?” It remains focused on mandates are bad instead of protection is good.
What is the point in complaining when we are overwhelmed by a strong media and political lens which advocates for a return to “normal” with little thought to the thousands of people who intimately understand the reality that we are not living normally any more?
What is the point when the experts whose advice has saved lives and the respect for the data and facts that inform our response have been moved from the top of the priority list?
What is the point when it appears we can’t muster the ability to endure the small adjustments a public health response means, leading to dystopian comms - and there is an overwhelming sense that we are being let down by those who were elected to do the right thing by us?
“Governments, they want their votes and they will often sacrifice what is the right thing to do from a science and public health perspective because they want to win an election."
If your reckoning of the impact of the pandemic or alert levels for the pandemic or future plans for pandemic response does not mention Long Covid, over two years in, there’s an inherent agenda in making that decision.
If it does not mention the impact of reinfection, there is an inherent agenda in making that decision.
If your reckoning of the impact of the pandemic does not take into account vulnerable communities who do not have the same level of privilege you enjoy, there is an inherent agenda in making that decision.
The closer you are to privilege, the safer you are from inequitable policies.
It is unfathomable to me how we are so determined to reach the old normal at all costs that we’re wilfully blind to the fact that there will be a human cost of removed protections.
Frontline workers. Healthcare workers who are burnt out now. Bodies who we seem to have forgotten we have Heath & Safety obligations to, if caring for each other is outside of our capacity.
What is the point of fighting an uphill battle with people whose desire for “normal” I can empathise with - but struggle to fathom how all of us return to a place that no longer exists.
As Arundhati Roy says, “the pandemic is a portal” - we can either walk through it and imagine new ways of being or cling to a status quo that was not equitable or centred around human lives from the start.
The point is this. We choose. We. Choose.
We live in a world where public health leadership is required.
It isn’t politicians who drive public health policy, it’s the public.
There are voices being raised across the world to call for a deeper examination of our choices, and the very real consequences of those choices.
“This is all part of a strategy which… has “less reliance on public health orders and more reliance on respecting each other”.
As if the two concepts are mutually exclusive instead of mutually reinforcing.”
- Nancy Baxter, The University of Melbourne, C Raina MacIntyre, UNSW Sydney
I hope that we don’t collectively choose to look away, to make decisions based on motivation for power and control to move us less than a minute to midnight.
I hope we have the maturity, leadership and compassion to dare to imagine a world where equity is the basis for decision making.
Operating in isolation isn’t good for anyone - that’s how things fall apart.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold
- W.B. Yeats
“Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion.”
- bell hooks
Very, well said