Editorial: The Pandemic Never Ended

EDITORIAL | HEALTH

Written by Liam Hansen (they/them) | @liamhanse.n | Editor-in-Chief

Illustrated by Gabbie De Baron (she/her) | @gabbie.indd | Graphic Designer

I was sitting in a Waitākere College music class when our teacher turned the projector on and broadcast the announcement of Aotearoa going into level four lockdown to a room of sixteen-year-old dimwits. A few classrooms over, people were panicking about not being able to see their friends or exist like regular teenagers for the foreseeable future; my group of theatre kid adjacent rejects were rejoicing at the thought of avoiding the terrifying straight boys that plagued our nightmares.

My next two years swung between beautiful calm and solitude and horrific moments of emotional peril. Gender dysphoria, eating disorders, health anxiety, self-loathing; it was all here, folks! Sure, “covid bad” isn’t a particularly hot take. I still can’t help but see the clear line between my life taking a turn for the better correlating with the lifting of live event restrictions and social gatherings in mid-2022.

Others in Aotearoa didn’t see their fortunes when I did. Covid didn’t magically go away for them; it’s been an everlasting aspect of their life, dealing with symptoms of chronic illness long after their initial diagnosis. Every day, news headlines of increasing rates of illness and death are buried under others deemed more important like the trials of the royal family and hot Westmere property bargains. Sure, people are dying - but it’s 2024, and Covid is old news.

This cultural resistance to admitting the pandemic isn’t over is leading to long-covid patients being left to fend for themselves. They join a large group of people dealing with chronic illness and receiving minimal government support despite their inability to work or contribute to our economy. Unsurprisingly, that just makes things worse: recent research in Australia has revealed that people working fewer hours could be costing them two billion NZD a year.

Many who advocate for long-covid visibility recommend taking the highest levels of precaution to minimise the risk of spreading long-covid through radical safety. Wearing masks in heavily populated indoor settings, socially isolating, and regular vaccinations are all paramount to minimising the spread of the disease. While the thought of ever having to wear a mask again is enough to make people wince, it’s much worse to be doomed to months, weeks, years, or a lifetime of chronic illness with minimal support.

Don't worry, the rest of our health issue is a little less doom and gloom. Contributor Ishani Mathur is chatting about the links between gut and brain health, Nathan Beetege chats about mental health in cinema, and dodofrenzy joins a pyramid scheme. We’re nearly at the end of the year gang - take a moment to breathe, do a couple stretches, and smile before you kill yourself through burnout in a last-ditch attempt to submit your thesis on the grunge hypermetal music scene of rural Pōkeno.