Waatea News Column: This Pandemic will test us as a People and as a Nation

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
10
443

With this Pandemic, we are about to enter a once in a generation unique crisis that will test us as a People and as a Nation.

As a species we don’t mathematically come across exponential growth much and so don’t appreciate the speed with which a Pandemic hits and spreads.

A novel virus we don’t have an immunity to that spreads with ease in a globalised economy becomes a human health emergency as well as an economic meltdown, and we will face both.

This Government’s most recent travel restrictions are some of the strongest right now with the ability to dramatically ramp up if there is an outbreak.

This is a tactic to delay the virus becoming a pandemic here, but we only just have to miss once and the virus just has to beat us once to invoke mass disruption domestically.

The globalised supply chains will snap as international trade dries up and gets caught in quarantine shutdowns.

We will feel this impact on medicines and many mass-produced products which will already be exacerbated by panic buying.

From school closures, industry shutdowns and quarantines, life is about to get very different for many people and because the virus will overwhelm hospitals if it becomes a pandemic, many people will get sick and the fear of that sickness will change peoples consumer behaviours in ways difficult to ignore.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

The Government’s financial response will need to acknowledge this and be prepared to put money directly into many peoples pockets and keep public services and clear information open.

There is an end to this escalating social and economic damage, and that is when a vaccine is available, but that won’t be for 12-18months.

In the meantime, we are going to have to refocus what is important and see this sudden need to work together as a wake-up call to a range of similar threats to us all.

There is a silver lining to this pandemic, but we must be courageous enough to weave it.

First published on Waatea News.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

10 COMMENTS

  1. So a ship comes into the harbour … Auckland harbour today and the Ports of Auckland CEO says, “allgood to the passengers, you can all disembark and go shopping!” WTF did the PM say!??

  2. Very well put Martyn, you can just see it unfolding as you say. On the positive side we will get less Tourism, less Billionaires, less Pollution etc etc. I watch with enthusiasm the coming downfall of many a tall poppy.

  3. Waatea News Column: This Pandemic will test us as a People and as a Nation
    I think we will be wanting in every way and every meaning of the word. I am so disillusioned to see clearly now what NZ has ended up as. So different to what I believed as a young adult. And we are on a collision course it seems. The only thing holding us in place, are little tugs at sea here and there nudging us away from disaster. What tugs? Actually they are a mix of waka some carved, some hastily launched with a quick karakia over them. Maybe the spirit of the land and people with Kaitiakitanga for the land and us and all living things will guide us. Kia ora.

    I have just been reading My Sister Sif by Ruth Park, now dead. A great person and story teller from NZ, honed in Australia. As great as the similar Nancy Wake. Maybe people such as these, strong men and women, far-seeing, good and practical, loving and loveable, will shed a light that shows us the way to navigate. And RIP Jeanette Fitzsimons.

  4. oh Coronavirus is the new leprosy…an excuse to bully or kettle people into testing stations and raise prices a lot I think

    • Show me someone who claims to know the value of a stock in 3 or 6 mounths after a global demand and supply shock that closes every country’s borders and I’ll show you someone standing atop a hole in the ground and claiming it be a mine. h/t Mark Twain

  6. We can finally drive to our beautiful spots without preying to God every time we go around a corner or over a bend.
    I know this guy. He was not impressed.
    https://youtu.be/A3oIwAqxLP8
    I’ve seen shit in and around Queenstown man.
    Some ( Most!) Chinese people simply stop and park in the middle of the road then they spread out to take snaps of Uncle Chan getting crushed by a sheep truck. Awesome memories, aye Mr Chan’s Whanau?
    I know another guy in QT who forced a family of Indian gentlepersons to stop where-by the guy I know reached in through the drivers door window, took the keys off the driver and threw them into Lake Wakatipu.
    They were only going around every corner on the way to Glenorchy on the wrong side of the road. Nothing serious nor that there.

Comments are closed.