Something that my brain has trouble with is remembering that Covid-19 is still raging outside the borders of my country. New Zealand had a few luxuries and a fair amount of luck to be able to be almost Covid-19-free; definitely without community-based transmission of the virus so far. The few cases we do have are in managed isolation of people arriving into the country from overseas.
So we’re kinda back-to-normal. We’re at work, schools and pools are open, gyms and libraries and large gatherings are all available and yeh; we’re flipping lucky.
The News carries stories of our beloved trans-Tasman neighbours who are really struggling with containment and death due to the virus. The USA seems to be unmoored and suffering with lack of leadership and commitment to banding together to end their pain. Flare-ups of the virus in parts of Asia and India and this pandemic has the planet in it’s grip and it’s still tightening.
Our economy is suffering even if we’re managing to keep the virus at the border. Tons of people have lost their jobs and their businesses and their incomes and their security. So far I still have a job but you’d need to be a bit of a moron where I work to not see the signs of staff-cuts on the horizon. I work at a tertiary education provider and our international students didn’t make it into the country before our borders closed. We have lost millions of dollars with the loss of their ability to study with us, so cuts will need to be made to keep this institution going; albeit at a lighter staff-load.