Long live Helen Clark
We all wish Helen Clark a long life. At the same time, that prospect makes us nervous.
Last week, the former Prime Minister was quoted in an interview with Rob Fyfe. “She was saying she does not expect life to be back to normal, as we previously knew it, in her lifetime,” Fyfe said.
Two things are scary. First, Clark knows what she is talking about. She co-chairs the World Health Organisation’s Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. And second, Clark is only 71.
According to a Statistics New Zealand calculator, a woman born in 1950 can expect to reach 90 on average.
That would mean no normality until at least 2040. So here is a run-through of our long path to normal.
2021: The final Pfizer vaccine shipment arrives on Boxing Day. The Covid response minister celebrates the delivery five days ahead of schedule.
2022: After the delta and epsilon variants of 2021, the ultra-contagious zeta mutation has experts worried. The border remains closed.
2023: The Ministry of Health secures planning permission for its own Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) facilities.
2024: The government is satisfied most border workers are now routinely tested after each quarantine breach.
2025: Delayed by workers and materials shortages, construction of the new MIQ buildings starts. After Australia lifted its last Covid restrictions, New Zealand suspends the travel bubble – too risky.
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2026: New Zealanders learn the Greek alphabet as zeta, theta and iota variants circulate in the world outside. It remains too dangerous to open the border, and the new MIQ facilities are not ready anyway.
2027: The lambda variant requires a different vaccine. The health minister assures the public that New Zealand will be at the front of the queue once again.
2028: The sports minister decides not to send athletes to the Los Angeles Olympics. With millions of people gathering, L.A. is too dangerous a place for Kiwis.
2029: The MIQ facility opens and closes again immediately because of air conditioning problems. The omicron variant sends Auckland into a six-months lockdown.
2030: The new vaccine arrives, but it is only 98 percent effective against the new rho and sigma variants. New Zealand is not taking any risks. The army starts a rebuild of the abandoned MIQ facility.
2030s: The decade is a repeat of the 2020s. By the end of it, we reach chi, psi and omega. But where is the new upsilon vaccine?
2040: The border remains closed. The government considers saliva testing as the solution.?The?New York Times?celebrates New Zealand’s zero Covid tradition.
Helen Clark turns 90. She is in good health and feels vindicated. Happy birthday!
This article was first published in The New Zealand Initiative's newsletter. You can subscribe to it here.
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3 年Scarily it may not be satire ??
Director at Passport Limited
3 年Oh dear, another Clarkism We are the most advanced evolutionary species on the planet. Tomorrow will be normal although some may call it the new normal. Projecting the future based on the ‘normal’ of the past is evolution standing still and that won’t happen. Having rebuilt infrastructure and economies from the scorched earth of two world ?wars in the past 100 years then the current 18 month global blip will be no more than a blink in the passage of time. The speed of our knowledge creation and advanced AI solutions will be the drivers of both survival and the ability to evolve.
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3 年Sad that this could be the reality as our response to this pandemic is a glacial pace
JP; Chartered Chemical Engineer and Chartered Scientist; Member of the Oxford Round Table; Director/Owner at Kevin Rolfe Consulting Limited; Born when the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration was 310ppm - now >420ppm
3 年Very clever Oliver. Maybe you should send your satire to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (one of my previous employers, as was Ashley Bloomfield). I saw that interview with Rob Fyfe. He cannot get to Canada for important Air Canada matters because of MIQ limitations. I cannot get to Singapore for work important to me, for the same reason. I have been going to Singapore, mainly for work, since 1975. [https://kevinrolfeconsultingltd.co.nz, especially the tab ''Countries of work experience"]. I have had both my coronavirus vaccinations, and so remain in limbo. I have this photo taken on my most recent trip to Singapore, in January 2020, to remind me of easier times. I usually stay at the lovely The Fullerton hotel in Singapore these days. ??
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3 年I laughed, but thinking you might be right…….I hope not