The Rear View Mirror – Covid-19 The Journey
Hi there team and welcome to another look at The Rear View Mirror. A semi regular look at whats been going on and not going on in our neck of the woods.
Since our last look our world has been turned on its head with the rampant spread of the Corona virus.
Health wise most of the carnage has occurred well away from us although we are far from untouched with several outbreaks in the Southland Otago region .
It’s pointless publishing figures and stats here as it changes from day to day.
Have we reached a peak in case numbers? Are we on the downhill slope, turning into the home straight on this journey? We have no idea.
One thing is for certain, many of the things we took for granted at the start of March can’t be taken for granted at the start of April.
Standing in a line to get into the supermarket or bottle store, not being able to grab a coffee, a feed of Macca’s or fish n chips on a Friday night, social distancing, just being in lock down conditions are things that we are coming to terms with, possibly a bit to rapidly for some. These and other factors are all part of this journey
Speaking of journey’s, taking the car for a spin is off the radar now. Haven’t turned mine over since lock down. Must do that today.
Getting a top up of meds at the chemist was something of a mission the other day for me. A few days before that it seemed easy peesy.
Hopefully we are all taking much better care with our personal hygiene namely washing our hands at every available opportunity.
The face of business and industry is changing at an alarming rate. Radio Sport has gone. The publisher of magazine titles like The Listener, NZ Woman’s Weekly and North and South has shut up shop with the loss of many jobs. Air New Zealand has dropped services to Invers and will only operate from a hand full domestic airports. They say that they can quickly put on flights to other centres if needs be. Passenger numbers have crashed by 99%.
At the start of the year Air New Zealand was a world leader flying direct routes to main cities in the USA and with a direct service to New York soon to start. Now look how it’s placed.
Our national airline revealed that it plans to divest itself of over 3 thousand staff.
At the moment we don’t know of any businesses locally that have shut or will shut directly due to Covid-19. The only certainty is that some businesses, hopefully not many, won’t last the distance.
As this is still a highly fluid situation we can only hope that everyone who had a job and went to work last month will be able to do so when we get passed all this.
On the plus side, and yes there is a plus side, I’ve noticed more gardens being tidied, lawns being mown, cars being cleaned and a lot more dogs taking their owners for a walk in the sparkling weather. Folks more keen to wave out or say hi while keeping socially distant which is not a bad thing.
Will this Covid-19 journey go round the block and arrive back at a point where everything was normal, you know, pre Covid days? Your guess is as good as mine.
Keep safe, keep well, keep active mentally and physically and keep connected as this journey is far from over.
Mal