Some New Zealanders who have suffered from coronavirus are urging against lockdown complacency following this month's return to Level 2 and 3 restrictions.
Six months on from fighting Covid-19, one woman in her 40s is far from being back to full health, and the country’s longest-hospitalised case, a woman who was close to death during two months in ICU – is also still recovering.
Aucklander Jenene Crossan posted on social media about her fight against coronavirus when she became ill in March.
“I was a perfectly healthy 41-year-old when I got this,” she told TVNZ1’s Sunday.
It’s been six months, and Ms Crossan has still not fully recovered.
“I'm sick in a whole variety of ways. I've joined a long-haul Covid group and realise that my symptoms are very similar to others. I have weird allergies that I never used to have. I'm allergic to dogs now - it'll just trigger me and I'll find myself having a deep chesty, cough."
Leaving her apartment is tough for Ms Crossan, who acknowledges the differences she sees in those adhering to lockdown.
“It's pretty triggering, I have to say, I can really see a divide in those who are obviously trying to do what they can and those sort of strikes [me as] that they don't really believe in the whole thing. And you can tell by the mask wearing, the amount of distance and space they're giving each other,” she said.
“I think we've become incredibly complacent about it,” she said.
Lilian Su'a’s parents, Lily and Tofiga, both had Covid-19 with her mother needing treatment in intensive care for two months.
“He caught it first and he took it home, you know, without knowing. He thought it was just flu symptoms and unfortunately, my mum also then contracted the virus and she was the one that had it worse,” Ms Su’a said.
“After going through what we went through, there is a peace but it's more worrying to see other people just not caring at all.
“I care about my parents so much that I would keep to the rules.
"It is, to this point, the hardest thing I've ever.... sorry.....It's still quite raw. It was the hardest thing that I've ever gone through as a daughter," said Ms Su'a.
ANZ's chief economist, Sharon Zollner, says lockdown is important, for the economy as well as health.
"It is clear this thing is going to go on and on. And what countries are finding is that people are over it, they really are sick of it. And young people in particular are starting to flout the rules," she said.
She says lockdown will only work "if people do what they're being asked".
"So in some ways, New Zealand's approach of go hard, go early, then relax, and then another burst of alarm and then relax. It's actually better suited, I think, possibly to the human psyche, which is fight or flight. It's really difficult to stay in a state of high alert about a chronic threat. We're just not wired that way."
"We really are doing the only thing we can which is to save lives and and keep the economy."
Ms Zollner says lockdown "made a very deep hole in economic activity" but the bounce back out of that was "very vigorous".
While she says its "disappointing" Covid-19 has snuck back into the country again, there is hope for a better comeback.
"If we do succeed in eliminating it for a second time, well, it would at least show that the first time wasn't a fluke. And hopefully, we can get more efficient at it and do it, in the less costly way."
Ms Zollner says countries that have dealt best with the virus are seeing the strongest recovery in their economies.
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