Young, vaccinated and over the Covid-19 pandemic
Monday, 24 January 2022
Verity Johnson is an Auckland-based business owner, writer and columnist.
OPINION: As always, the pre-press conference mood in Auckland on Sunday morning was pure panic.
The city woke up to the inevitable push notification of doom, and did what we always do. We screamed, “but I need to retile the bathroom! Today! While drinking litres of wine and building a 2m papier mache sculpture out of toilet paper!”
So everyone tore off to Bunnings, Countdown and the liquor stores, like overcaffeinated bats outta hell late for an 11am meeting. Of course, it was Mad Max on the motorways. Even old dears in yellow Mazda Demios were galloping around like highwaymen. It was like getting challenged to pistols at dawn by an arthritic banana.
In short, it was another 11am press conference day.
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**
But unlike every other time over the last two years, this panic faded away surprisingly quickly.
News outlets reported that after three hours, the panic buying had died down. And on Monday, Aucklanders were reporting that they actually felt pretty relaxed. You could feel the city slacken, the hot air of hysteria leaving our bodies with a faint hiss like a deflating lilo.
That’s because that spell of panic was more of a hangover than a city-wide mood. It was a momentary, automatic reaction, after a year of lockdowns that left us all a bit tender and overly twitchy.
But it passed. Now we’re just lying on the couch, looking out the window, thinking whatever, I’m boosted, let’s just get on with it.
We’re not apathetic. A more accurate term is what’s popping up in Britain, the US and Australia, which Twitter is referring to as the “vaxxed and over it” crowd.
It refers to the part of the population who are young, healthy and/or lucky enough not to be at particular risk from Omicron. And are determined to get on with living.
It’s a double-handed acceptance. It means you are committed to public health measures, getting boosted, wearing masks, socially distancing. But crucially, you’re also trying to go about normal life. You know you’ll get it, and it’ll be OK. It’s not the same life-threatening disease of March 2020 any more – for this group at least. And actually, this group staying chill helps the health system care for those who can’t afford to.
Auckland is sliding into a Kiwi version of this. Obviously it’s helped because we’ve already got a deep city-wide sense of exhaustion and familiarity with heavy restrictions. We’d rather have a normal life with the risk of Covid than another level 4.
But this approach is also well suited to Aucklanders, and New Zealanders, because we’re all so laid back. We’re all so chilled we’re practically Frujus. And this national attitude lends itself naturally to the, “yeah, yeah, get boosted, do all the health stuff, it’ll be sweet” message.
That makes me very hopeful. We can get behind this approach as a nation. We just need to draw upon our deep reserves of can’t-be-arsed-getting-worked-up-over-this.
Then we’ll just slide into accepting it as a new flu, stop panic buying, or getting needlessly tested. We’ll still shop, drink, eat and live in a way that keeps normality humming along. And we’ll keep hospitals free to help those who need it more.
So, if you can, now is the time to boost-then-chill. Splay on the couch, put on a cowboy hat, wave a cigar and dress your cat in spurs. It’s the time to be Clint Eastwood. Every time someone texts you asking, “have you seen the news?!!!!”, you squint into the sunset with a thousand-mile stare and say knowingly …
“I’ve seen everything, son. And she’ll be right.”