Australia removed isolation requirements, and it sucks. We as a family have made a decision to isolate regardless when we have Covid, until we test negative. I have had Covid three times, each time has been different, and the lingering effects longer. I still have brain fog from the last time I had it, which was 6 months ago next week (getting my booster tomorrow, woohoo!). I am a healthy adult in my 40s. Hate to see what it's like for others with less of a healthy baseline.
It just feels like collectively humanity wants to stick our fingers in our ears and go "La-la-lahhhh!" about wht's happened, instead of learning and growing and embracing a new normal, in preference to the old normal. It sucks.
Thank you so much Emily ❤️🩹 I know how much effort these things take. I will get as many people as I can to write to Hipkins et al
It feels soul destroying some days dealing with this. I don’t think I have any friends left who mask. Fortunately my partner is still on board.
I was at a medical centre recently and two women came in, each with a sick child (all masked) and the receptionist said ‘oh kids don’t have to mask, you can take it off’ 🤯 one woman said oh I don’t think so, the other said cool and whipped it off and her son coughed into a full waiting room for the next ten mins, and I had to go into the drs room after them 😔😔😔 💔
I can look this up, but off the top of your head do you know if the Green Party supportive of keeping any Covid mitigations? Chloe Swarbruck is my MP.
Thanks again, you make a big difference ❤️ please keep telling us when you’re masking, I need to know others in Nz still are caring for each other 🌸
That sucks, I’m sorry. It is really hard eh? I wonder if it was an admin person who potentially doesn’t understand how masks work? Personally I’d complain about that. My youngest no longer masks because he’s lately found it upsetting - I think children should only mask if it’s not stressful for them. But if a child is happily masking a receptionist shouldn’t encourage putting that child or others at risk. In terms of masking it’s hard eh. I don’t make my friends mask, I get everyone has different risk profiles and they’re tired of it. I still mask but I recognise the toll masking is taking on people - I dunno. My eldest recently became really upset about masking - he’s been doing it since the beginning of the pandemic and has been the only kid in class masking. For his mental health we had to reassess. But my husband still masks every day and I recently did the whole Lizzo concert masked lol despite sweating my ass off haha. It’s bleak. The Green Party would be supportive I’d imagine but I haven’t checked. They were the only ones wanting to keep the older protections.
Thanks for sharing this Emily. I must admit I completely lost my temper when I heard and emailed Chris hipkins directly to ask about what costings had been done for the increase in disability this policy will create. I will go back, tidy it up and send it to the other email addresses you've included
I just read the RNZ article about the end of restrictions. I thought I'd be panicking but instead I'm crying, frozen to my chair and having memories of just how isolated we were when when we were shielding. I can't believe the Minister of Health raves about our immunity to covid, like no one is having repeat infections, like none of us live with post viral illness and fear the next virus will cause us to becomw bedbound. What I meant to do? Do I homeschool? Quit my very part time job I love to homeschool my extroverted ND kid, spread myself even thinner as a full-time single parent. Fuck Labour, fuck eugenics and fuck everyone who thinks the vulnerable are worth nothing. I hate the world.
Thanks for the post Emily. I have had Long Covid for 15 months now, and it’s been brutal for me. The thought that ~10% of cases develop LC should be enough to make isolation rules stay in place but politicking rather than health outcomes will probably win .
Thanks so much for trying to keep this in the public eye, even though deep down I think it won't work and we're all basically fucked. SORRY! Somehow society just can't get its head around Covid and its ongoing threat to many of us. I and 2 members of my family have chronic illnesses (autoimmune) and we live our lives away from the rest of the world now. My husband occasionally has to do work where he is possibly exposed to Covid and then has to isolate and test for days, living in his office above the garage. We are lucky, we have enough income to hide away safely. But we will never be able to do ordinary things again - no movies, art galleries, concerts, shows, shopping, travelling on planes or public transport etc etc. I was horrified to discover earlier this year that the rules for mask wearing in medical facilities had changed, so that the ONLY place we thought was kind of safe is no longer so. I have to have lung scans in a closed badly ventilated room (so that my lung condition can be monitored) and the person doing the scan doesn't have to wear a mask and can stand there coughing happily. And they can say no when I ask them to wear a mask please. WTF!
This terrifies me. Me and my family have just got to the end of day one of our first covid isolation and having worked so hard for so long to avoid it I’m feeling pretty nervous (particularly for my kids who are too young to have been vaccinated and my T1 partner, which isn’t enough to be eligible for antivirals). I’m horrified at the thought I may have infected someone before I was symptomatic. I’m struggling to imagine a reality where people aren’t required to isolate when they know they have covid. I just. I despair.
I have covid (for the first time ..?! ) and I feel like a bag of arseholes. I can’t fathom sharing this with others so will do my 7 days happily. Probably more by the time the kids get it one by one ....
My mahi has got rid of covid specific sick leave so that sucks. I have a good manager who’ll sign me off for the week regardless but others don’t. That’s where Govt directives are still so important - they set clear expectations.
I never want to return to that pre covid state where I remember coughing and sneezing my way through winters in an office, watching the colds/flus track their way through the office toward you. The new normal where we mask up and stay home - even for ‘just a cold’ - is much kinder to everyone and probably much more productive for us all.
It’s a conundrum isn’t it. I think most people have stopped testing when symptomatic so we’re not well protected anyway. I work in a gp clinic and it is rare then someone has tested when they call up with respiratory symptoms.
I think it would be interesting to know because we have just had a big sweep in our area of Covid cases, all found via testing, and everyone did seven day isolation. They wouldn’t know if they’d not tested. So people must still be testing. We as a whanau test regularly anyway, but I’d be interested to know what type of people aren’t testing…
We test every single time any of us has symptoms, and I also test before I visit the elderly people I am working with on one project I'm involved with.
Same here - I also test before meeting vulnerable friends and if I’m at a high risk event. Like after flying and going to Lizzo I tested every day for seven days. I also ask people to test before meeting me if they’ve been at high risk events.
Done. I’ve stayed alive and without COVID until now - I mask everywhere and don’t go out much. I run a small business. I wear a mask on the days I deal with the public. I get shit for it. I know far too many people in a range of ages in a similar situation.
Quote: "The pandemic is now in its fourth year, with little sign of abating, and clear public health advice to support those in vulnerable groups is urgently needed. Without this, people at heightened risk must continue to navigate life in parallel, relatively isolated from the rest of the community, with the now well-documented negative outcomes that this brings. Additionally, long-standing healthcare access issues are exacerbated by new risks posed by COVID-19, further widening inequality between the well and the vulnerable. Requiring vulnerable people to isolate indefinitely into the future, without access to accurate information to inform decisions about risk can only be viewed as a failure of public health policy." YES, YES, YES.
Australia removed isolation requirements, and it sucks. We as a family have made a decision to isolate regardless when we have Covid, until we test negative. I have had Covid three times, each time has been different, and the lingering effects longer. I still have brain fog from the last time I had it, which was 6 months ago next week (getting my booster tomorrow, woohoo!). I am a healthy adult in my 40s. Hate to see what it's like for others with less of a healthy baseline.
It just feels like collectively humanity wants to stick our fingers in our ears and go "La-la-lahhhh!" about wht's happened, instead of learning and growing and embracing a new normal, in preference to the old normal. It sucks.
I’m so sorry Isa and so grateful you continue to isolate x it’s so hard when it seems like people don’t care.
Thank you so much Emily ❤️🩹 I know how much effort these things take. I will get as many people as I can to write to Hipkins et al
It feels soul destroying some days dealing with this. I don’t think I have any friends left who mask. Fortunately my partner is still on board.
I was at a medical centre recently and two women came in, each with a sick child (all masked) and the receptionist said ‘oh kids don’t have to mask, you can take it off’ 🤯 one woman said oh I don’t think so, the other said cool and whipped it off and her son coughed into a full waiting room for the next ten mins, and I had to go into the drs room after them 😔😔😔 💔
I can look this up, but off the top of your head do you know if the Green Party supportive of keeping any Covid mitigations? Chloe Swarbruck is my MP.
Thanks again, you make a big difference ❤️ please keep telling us when you’re masking, I need to know others in Nz still are caring for each other 🌸
That sucks, I’m sorry. It is really hard eh? I wonder if it was an admin person who potentially doesn’t understand how masks work? Personally I’d complain about that. My youngest no longer masks because he’s lately found it upsetting - I think children should only mask if it’s not stressful for them. But if a child is happily masking a receptionist shouldn’t encourage putting that child or others at risk. In terms of masking it’s hard eh. I don’t make my friends mask, I get everyone has different risk profiles and they’re tired of it. I still mask but I recognise the toll masking is taking on people - I dunno. My eldest recently became really upset about masking - he’s been doing it since the beginning of the pandemic and has been the only kid in class masking. For his mental health we had to reassess. But my husband still masks every day and I recently did the whole Lizzo concert masked lol despite sweating my ass off haha. It’s bleak. The Green Party would be supportive I’d imagine but I haven’t checked. They were the only ones wanting to keep the older protections.
“their “only” is a family’s “everything”. “ SO well said! Thank you.
Thanks for sharing this Emily. I must admit I completely lost my temper when I heard and emailed Chris hipkins directly to ask about what costings had been done for the increase in disability this policy will create. I will go back, tidy it up and send it to the other email addresses you've included
Totally fair. I feel so angry and exhausted by it all ❤️❤️❤️
Thank you for letting me know about this. I have shared it around too. Hopefully, it will get some traction. Love S
Thank you Sue!
Thank you for sharing this Emily, I'll email! I'm certainly not comfortable about the prospect.
I just read the RNZ article about the end of restrictions. I thought I'd be panicking but instead I'm crying, frozen to my chair and having memories of just how isolated we were when when we were shielding. I can't believe the Minister of Health raves about our immunity to covid, like no one is having repeat infections, like none of us live with post viral illness and fear the next virus will cause us to becomw bedbound. What I meant to do? Do I homeschool? Quit my very part time job I love to homeschool my extroverted ND kid, spread myself even thinner as a full-time single parent. Fuck Labour, fuck eugenics and fuck everyone who thinks the vulnerable are worth nothing. I hate the world.
I’m so sorry Nic. You’re not alone I’m gutted too. Sending you lots of love x
Thanks for the post Emily. I have had Long Covid for 15 months now, and it’s been brutal for me. The thought that ~10% of cases develop LC should be enough to make isolation rules stay in place but politicking rather than health outcomes will probably win .
Thanks so much for trying to keep this in the public eye, even though deep down I think it won't work and we're all basically fucked. SORRY! Somehow society just can't get its head around Covid and its ongoing threat to many of us. I and 2 members of my family have chronic illnesses (autoimmune) and we live our lives away from the rest of the world now. My husband occasionally has to do work where he is possibly exposed to Covid and then has to isolate and test for days, living in his office above the garage. We are lucky, we have enough income to hide away safely. But we will never be able to do ordinary things again - no movies, art galleries, concerts, shows, shopping, travelling on planes or public transport etc etc. I was horrified to discover earlier this year that the rules for mask wearing in medical facilities had changed, so that the ONLY place we thought was kind of safe is no longer so. I have to have lung scans in a closed badly ventilated room (so that my lung condition can be monitored) and the person doing the scan doesn't have to wear a mask and can stand there coughing happily. And they can say no when I ask them to wear a mask please. WTF!
This terrifies me. Me and my family have just got to the end of day one of our first covid isolation and having worked so hard for so long to avoid it I’m feeling pretty nervous (particularly for my kids who are too young to have been vaccinated and my T1 partner, which isn’t enough to be eligible for antivirals). I’m horrified at the thought I may have infected someone before I was symptomatic. I’m struggling to imagine a reality where people aren’t required to isolate when they know they have covid. I just. I despair.
I have covid (for the first time ..?! ) and I feel like a bag of arseholes. I can’t fathom sharing this with others so will do my 7 days happily. Probably more by the time the kids get it one by one ....
My mahi has got rid of covid specific sick leave so that sucks. I have a good manager who’ll sign me off for the week regardless but others don’t. That’s where Govt directives are still so important - they set clear expectations.
I never want to return to that pre covid state where I remember coughing and sneezing my way through winters in an office, watching the colds/flus track their way through the office toward you. The new normal where we mask up and stay home - even for ‘just a cold’ - is much kinder to everyone and probably much more productive for us all.
It’s a conundrum isn’t it. I think most people have stopped testing when symptomatic so we’re not well protected anyway. I work in a gp clinic and it is rare then someone has tested when they call up with respiratory symptoms.
I think it would be interesting to know because we have just had a big sweep in our area of Covid cases, all found via testing, and everyone did seven day isolation. They wouldn’t know if they’d not tested. So people must still be testing. We as a whanau test regularly anyway, but I’d be interested to know what type of people aren’t testing…
We test every single time any of us has symptoms, and I also test before I visit the elderly people I am working with on one project I'm involved with.
Same here - I also test before meeting vulnerable friends and if I’m at a high risk event. Like after flying and going to Lizzo I tested every day for seven days. I also ask people to test before meeting me if they’ve been at high risk events.
We're definitely still testing!!
We’re still testing but I’ll admit not as diligently as we were.
I’m also still regularly seeing people share positive tests on social media. More in the last month than I have in prior months.
Done. I’ve stayed alive and without COVID until now - I mask everywhere and don’t go out much. I run a small business. I wear a mask on the days I deal with the public. I get shit for it. I know far too many people in a range of ages in a similar situation.
Oops , I was so despairing in my last post I forgot to add a link to a great research article from La Trobe University in Australia about trying to live in a society that has moved on from Covid https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1326020023030455?via%3Dihub
Quote: "The pandemic is now in its fourth year, with little sign of abating, and clear public health advice to support those in vulnerable groups is urgently needed. Without this, people at heightened risk must continue to navigate life in parallel, relatively isolated from the rest of the community, with the now well-documented negative outcomes that this brings. Additionally, long-standing healthcare access issues are exacerbated by new risks posed by COVID-19, further widening inequality between the well and the vulnerable. Requiring vulnerable people to isolate indefinitely into the future, without access to accurate information to inform decisions about risk can only be viewed as a failure of public health policy." YES, YES, YES.