On the one hand as New Zealand removes most (if not all) of the remaining Covid-19 restrictions I celebrate the fact that life, for the majority of people, will finally return to some level of normalcy.
Whatever normal really is.
On the other hand though, I am concerned for the small minority, like me who are vulnerable due to health issues and are now left wondering what does that mean for the likes of us? 🤔
You see, over the past month I have finally been able to return to work at the office for a couple of days a week, and return to gatherings of more than 10-15 people, for the first time in almost a year.
I have a little known incurable autoimmune disease called Scleroderma (along with Raynauds and Interstitial Lung Disease), that has the potential of causing severe illness to me if I pick up any kind of infection be that viral or bacterial.
I’m unable to wear a mask due to the lung disease and coupled with that I’ve recently had a course of infusions that suppresses my immune system, so am left wondering – what now?
I appreciate what Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced yesterday; “The changes we’ve made today are significant. They mark a milestone in our response, this is a time when finally – rather than feeling COVID dictates what happens to us, our lives, and our futures -we take control back.”
However, with the removal of most (if not all) restrictions I am no longer in control of anything. In fact I am more at risk now than I was previously!
Jacinda went on to say that “This will be the first summer in three years when there won’t be the question of: What if?”
Well I along with a number of us vulnerable people have a few questions: Will it be safe to go back to work fully in a work environment where I am surrounded by people who are unaware that I have health issues? Because on the outside it appears that there is nothing wrong with me.
Will it be safe for me to be out and about as I have been, as I won’t know if the person who is no longer wearing a mask is safe to be around or not? I guess I’ll now have to wear my face shield in all my toing and froing to ensure my own health and wellbeing, and keep my distance.
Will I be able to continue contributing to society as I have been working from home and occasionally going out to places which I deem as a low risk?
Or will I now have to squirrel myself away again from society, or at least be even more vigilant and concerned than I have been of late, so that I can rest assured that I will not get infected with any type of viral infection?
These are all serious questions that circulate in my head and the heads of other vulnerable people, and going forward could potentially keep us up at night, further compounding our symptoms.
Again I repeat that I celebrate the fact that life, for the majority of people, will finally be able to return to some level of normalcy. And I don’t begrudge that for one instance – But what about people like me? Have we been left high and dry by the powers that be?
Life is never going to be the same again, it is never going to return to normal.
Now, maybe I am feeling down on myself and have let the anxiety get the better of me, for now. But speaking to a few people the other day that also suffer from Scleroderma this is our reality! We are concerned, some are actually afraid now more than ever.
You see, past history tells us that disabled people and those with rare diseases and disorders are often moved off to the wayside and forgotten about, or avoided because it it just too hard to accommodate them.
As it stands the number of people with my disease within New Zealand is hard to accurately quantify because the health system does not have a centralised database recording the numbers affected by it – it is seems to be based on percentage of the population from what I can gather, and this is the case for many rare diseases.
Reactions to the news to scrap the Covid-19 Protection Framework is mixed according to an article on Radio New Zealand. Auckland University epidemiologist professor Rod Jackson has said that it is a mistake to drop mask mandates altogether. They should continue to be used in confined spaces such as buses and planes, “Those are settings where you’re sitting right next to somebody and you don’t know whether they’ve got Covid, they don’t know whether they’ve got Covid, so that’s a setting where I think we should have retained masks.“
University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker agreed that a mask mandate should be retained for public transport.
“We need criteria to identify these high-risk situations, particularly those that are confined, crowded, and close-contact where people are regularly exposed.“
A few days before the announcement Marc Daalder wrote an article for newsroom saying that the Government’s reported plan to scrap the traffic light system is premature and will leave New Zealand with few options to respond to more severe variants or other pandemic threats.
University of Otago epidemiologist Dr Amanda Kvalsvig said the government needed to consider all New Zealanders when removing protection measures. “Reduced measures mean that disabled and immune-compromised people will now be sharing public spaces with unmasked people who could be a household contact of a case and actively infectious.”
The conclusions of the Government’s own variant plan, warns irregular, fitful mutation means Covid-19 won’t fall into consistent patterns anytime soon and states that “we are likely to see three-four pandemic waves a year for the short- to medium-term.“
He goes on to write that “the scrapping of mask mandates and other protections limits the freedom and safety of the most vulnerable New Zealanders.”
In another article Dr Amanda Kvalsvig has said that “many disabled [and vulnerable] people will have to make choices no-one should have to make, between a lockdown – but this time, a private one with no endpoint – or taking on the risk of a life-changing or life-limiting infection.”
Maybe we the vulnerable need more people like Morgan Godfery who has said that “[He’d] rather not wear a mask, but [his] personal convenience is far less important than the freedom of elderly, immunocompromised, and disabled people to go about their public lives with a degree of safety against a coronavirus infection.”
Unfortunately, I believe that many people will not have the same sentiments though and Jacinda’s rhetoric “we are all in this together!” from only a couple of years ago will, like the vulnerable community, fall by the wayside. At one point we were united – but now I fear we are far from it!
One last statistic to leave with you – There have only been 12 weeks in the past decade when more than 800 people have died in New Zealand.
Eight of those have come this year, amidst the Omicron wave.
The life and times of Perry... 