Dear New Zealand.
Oh ora!
Omicron, the unwanted visitor that we in Australia hosted over the Christmas season, is now with you.
You have been busy preparing for this guest and have extended your isolation requirements. The one you do in your head is the most important form of preparation.
Going from having very few Covid cases to thousands of cases a day in the community is a mental shift that is hard to prepare for.
I'm not writing to tell you how to act, I wish I'd been given a glimpse of the future.
You start to know people who become contacts. They get pinged after checking in somewhere where there was a Covid case and suddenly dinner plans or a weekend away is canceled. It's your turn. You will probably get an alert from a place that is unmemorable, like the time you ducked into the supermarket for a carton of milk. After the first ping, your phone will go nuts with notifications. It happened early on in Sydney.
If you are unlucky, you will be in a situation where it is difficult to get tested. The first mental challenge is the possibility of exposure to the virus and the inability to know if you have it or not. The politicians in Australia used to say personal responsibility. The mental load of dealing with the outbreak can be increased by this. If you can't get tested, how can you take personal responsibility? If the state is unprepared, how can you keep yourself sane? Personal responsibility isn't going to cut it when it comes to the infectious virus.
When you and everyone you know are getting pinged, the next challenge is how to carry on. In Australia, the settings for isolation were changing. You should be prepared for a period of time due to health orders. It meant missing Christmas or being unable to travel in the summer holidays to visit friends and family in parts of the country that were previously off limits. After almost two years of the Pandemic, you are just wanting to get back to normal. We understand the pain of uncertainty. Children were denied almost two full years of education and were locked up for long periods in Australia. This summer has not provided it.
The phase of the virus that is far from normal. It is hard. Your friends and family will have different levels of comfort being in the community around this time. If your social life goes away, you won't be surprised. People prefer to wait out the Omicron wave in their homes rather than risk catching the virus. Understand if someone has a different capacity for risk than you. Keeping sane in Omicron was different for everyone. Some people felt more secure withdrawing and keeping a low profile, while others canceled holidays and trips away. I moved most of my socializing outside. It didn't feel normal, but what does?
Takeaway food and picnics in the park, food shortages and cafe closings, empty supermarket shelves, and scary headlines about case numbers and overstretched ICUs were just some of the strange twilight world we occupied this summer. There was a beach and hot nights in the city. It was a bit strange to be honest.
Knowing people who have it is the third mental challenge.
Like us, you have probably gone from being able to name many of your country's Covid cases. Six months ago this would have been very dramatic, but Omicron is not particularly exclusive and many thousands of people a day catch it. The first case can cause alarm. Will they survive? What can you do to help? Did you catch it from them?
The best thing to do here is not to freak out and help them through their illness by getting them groceries and helping them monitor their symptoms via phone/text. The wedding I attended at the beginning of January was a super-spreader event. We all recovered. The stress of being sick this week was being unable to get a Covid test. The extra time the government has had to make sure everyone has a test has been used.
The next mental challenge is when you see the effects of isolation and illness on society. Who is holding our society together? Omicron will tell you something. Our hospital staff and paramedics, as well as people who work in restaurants, cafes and supermarkets, are included. When a wave sweeps through, shops and cafes will be closed, supermarket shelves will be empty, and local flights will be canceled. The disruptions allow you to see Omicron and create havoc. Adapt to the new circumstances and keep calm. It lasts a few weeks.
The next challenge is when you wake up with a dry cough. You have been playing dodgeball with the virus for a long time, and suddenly you think you might have it. Unless you have an underlying health issue, this is not a cause for alarm. If you are going out for a test, stay home and look after yourself. The worst passes within a week for a lot of people. In Australia, hospitalisations and deaths rise with the increase in cases. Everyone recovers slowly.
Try not to panic and be calm. This will also pass.
A columnist for Guardian Australia is Brigid Delaney.
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