Covid Collaborators, for want of a better term, those who refuse to get vaccinated, or follow guidelines and restrictions put in place to protect the health of the community. And why have there been relatively few here compared to overseas?
At first there were the anti-vaxxers, the science deniers who had done their own research. People with fairly low levels of education, who genuinely didn’t seem to understand how vaccines work, but who had a surprising confidence in their own knowledge.
“I’m not putting that untested thing in my body”, they’d say. I imagine it became a bit hard to say it wasn’t tested once billions of doses had been administered around the world, but fact immunity remains strong.
Those who say it is no worse than the flu, those millions of dead bodies must be a slightly inconvenient truth. Not to mention the on-going health problems being suffered by those who have experienced long-Covid. A little flu indeed.
We had those who considered themselves invincible, typically males under 40. “This only affects old people, I’m fine, I’ll trust my immune system”. Taking delight thumbing their nose at a deadly virus with zero regard for the rest of us. Embodied most recently in narcissists like Djokovic.
Then there were those who opposed co-called mandates. On the face of it people standing for personal liberties and the right to choose. But then they’d start talking and its all comparisons with Nazi Germany, the Prime Minister is a fascist communist, and other absurdities.
Curiously these aren’t people you’d see on protest marches against the GCSB, or similar, where people are actually standing up against misuse of the state’s powers to infringe on individual rights
It is almost as if their anger wasn’t about liberty at all, but in many cases - hello Destiny Church, misogynistic fury that we have a female leader.
Overseas we see mass protests from people with no confidence in their government, a lack of belief that measures work, and comprising relatively intelligent people compared to those we see protesting us here. So why do we not see the same level of disengagement here?
The calm and considered leadership from our government has to be a major factor. Good grief look at some other countries, their leaders can’t even stick to gathering restrictions or the common sense use of a mask. Their populations must be shaking their heads, no wonder they lack confidence.
We’re not as a population as partisan as those in other countries. Especially the US where we see red states vs blue states and people making decisions about wearing masks etc based on political affiliation rather than science.
Of course we get political supporters on the news here complaining about the government’s actions, the same people who would be praising the very same actions if their team were in charge, but they seem to be a small minority and their motivation rather obvious.
There is something about our psyche as a small country at the bottom of the world - we just love to see ourselves on the world stage punching above our weight
And this isn’t some guy 70 years ago being the first to climb the highest mountain, or a bunch of blokes being the best at moving a funny shaped ball round a field and winning a World Cup. This is us, all of us, doing our bit and leading the world as a result. We’re part of it and it feels good.
The UK and the US are seeing hundreds of thousands of cases a today, Australia tens of thousands, and we’re seeing dozens. Omicron rages around the world but is still, be it good luck or good management, contained at the border here.
Even Delta is getting to the point where the case numbers are starting to peter out. Is it any wonder that so many are happy with the way things are going?
Every time the opposition pops up demanding we open the borders, no close the borders, get rid of MIQ, they sound like those leaders overseas that have failed so spectacularly. Many of us think - yeah nah, we’re doing fine thanks
So do we need to do anything differently?
Thus far the approach has been that we should take people with us, the government has bent over backwards to, and it has served us remarkably well. Over 90% of people have rolled their sleeves up and gotten jabbed, the vast majority have accepted that restrictions are for health reasons and gotten on with it.
Up until now people like the Destiny Church crowd, and others, breaking rules have been treated very lightly with a goal of encouraging people to do the right thing and work with the authorities. Which is good but has resulted in a sense that there are no repercussions for those breaking the rules, other than letting the team down.
In the event of a more deadly strain I think we’ll need to see the police taking action against those who won’t get vaccinated or follow the rules. I reckon we're about one dangerous variant away from the majority really losing patience with the 5% who could let everyone down.
Overseas you can see some countries, with even existing variants bringing hospital systems to breaking point, cracking down much harder on those who refuse to follow health measures.
But in the meantime doing the right thing by our whanau, by our communities, pulling together in the time of an emergency seems to work pretty well for the vast majority of us.
Hmm I wonder if the government couldn’t harness this collective national spirit to do some other things that benefit the majority – just a thought.
The inverse relationship between competence and confidence in self-assessment is well established. Check out the Dunning-Kruger effect.
However, Education, humanities, and social Sciences have failed grossly when so many prefer conspiracy and fake truths over scientific methods and results. We seem to have given up teaching people to think in favour of their feelings.