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I think Soon is right - the pandemic revealed people.
As a scientist doomscrolling the scientific literature I was aware of the pandemic a couple of months before it really hit us here. It revealed my own low tolerance for folks who were ignoring the coming problem or pretending they personally didn t need to do anything about it. I sent some terse and probably career limiting e-mails during that time.
As it became clear that NZ wasn t magically immune to the virus spreading, it revealed a health system that was remarkably underprepared. Who knew that a couple of decades of underfunding would make us particularly vulnerable.
A hell of a lot of people who have voted National for a long time must have switched to Labour. We may eventually have sound evidence as to why this happened, but I d think that keeping the Greens out of government is a believable motivation for a lot of people. Along with many other reasons, but it would be the world s biggest coincidence if the lion s share of them wasn t Covid-related in one way or another, as Labour s meteoric rise concided exactly with the pandemic hysteria and there has been basically no other news this year.
Right wing pundits certainly have more than their fair share of idiots. It s a great pity that they are pretty much the only people left that are openly critical of the government any more. I personally would not be singing this government s praise on it s profound left-wing acheivements, most especially not it s authoritarian response to the pandemic, which was a victory for the complete absence of any sensible democratic debate. The ensuing unprecedente
I think Soon is right - the pandemic revealed people.
As a scientist doomscrolling the scientific literature I was aware of the pandemic a couple of months before it really hit us here. It revealed my own low tolerance for folks who were ignoring the coming problem or pretending they personally didn t need to do anything about it. I sent some terse and probably career limiting e-mails during that time.
As it became clear that NZ wasn t magically immune to the virus spreading, it revealed a health system that was remarkably underprepared. Who knew that a couple of decades of underfunding would make us particularly vulnerable.
The irony of all this penny pinching is that having diseases like this in the community actually cost more than treatment ever does. Even when people get the tests and find out what the the options are it is still not easy to access help even for the most savvy of us.
Sometimes even getting a diagnosis is blocked or made difficult because of the possibility of expensive treatment. Especially if there is a social stigma.
In the weekend I heard overheard a conversation between two social workers. This took place in a public area and while they didn’t identify anyone by name it was a bit scary.