It ain’t over yet

This is probably one of the most obvious things I’ve written: The Covid pandemic isn’t over yet. Well, it’s obvious to those of us in the reality-based world, anyway, but for us, the evidence is everywhere. Last week, I got a sort of confirmation that a lot is still disprupted.

In my post about my Labour Day Holiday Weekend, I mentioned ordering small raised garden beds to plant my citrus in. I ordered them the night I published my post, and it was acknowledged the next day, Wednesday the 26th, and they said they’d email me a tracking number once the order shipped. Then, silence for two days. On Saturday, I got another email from them:

Due to higher than expected order volumes at our warehouse, staff absences and supply chain disruption we’re experiencing some delays in dispatching orders. We’d like to reassure you that we haven’t forgotten yours.

All of this left me wondering, how bad IS the current Covid situation in New Zealand? There have been a lot of anecdotal reports of staffing shortages everywhere due to people being out sick, and we’re pretty much done with the influenza season this year, so is Covid getting bad again?

As it happens, today—being a Monday—was the day the Ministry of Health released the weekly Covid statistics. There were 20,522 new cases over the past week, and that’s up from 16,399 the previous week. The increase is because of several factors, such as, that there are now several variants in New Zealand, the regulations have been relaxed (no longer much mandatory mask wearing, for example), people have changed their behaviours, and immunity from vaccines and boosters is waning at the same time new variants are becoming better at evading immunity.

Meanwhile, deaths of those with Covid or attributed to Covid had been declining for months, but have now stabilised. The ministry says that deaths lag behind infections, but didn’t suggest that the rising number of cases would necessarily mean the number of deaths would begin to rise again. However, it seems logical that with new variants that can easily evade our immune systems, infections will continue to increase, and that logically means that the number of deaths will, too.

Still, the biggest issue for the country as a whole is that in any given week, thousands of people are becoming infected with Covid, and that will continue to mean workers will be out sick. Staff absences due to Covid, and the disruptions that causes, are likely to continue to be widespread for the foreseeable future.

So, yes, Covid does seem to be getting worse in New Zealand, and disruptions will continue. I got another email this afternoon that my order was ready to ship (and the tracking information showed it was still “ready for next collection”, meaning not actually on its way yet). That means a five day (three business days) delay in my order being shipped. Hopefully, this won’t turn out to be a “remember when shipping delays were only a few days?” sort of thing. Maybe summer will help everything.