Lockdown anniversary: Bay of Plenty locals reflect on life shut down

Bay of Plenty Times·

24 Mar, 2021 05:00 PM8 mins to read

Share this article

Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Mainfreight driver Greg Camenzind was an essential worker and worked through lockdown. Photo / George Novak

One year ago today, life in New Zealand changed forever. The Alert Level 4 lockdown began at 11.59pm on March 25 and on March 26 we woke up to quiet streets as Kiwis were urged to stay home to save lives. On the anniversary of lockdown Cira Olivier and Leah

Toi Te Ora knew Covid-19 was coming. The primary health organisation was preparing for it and on March 19 the time came – the region had its first case in Rotorua. Three days later there was a case in Tauranga.

In total, there have been 64 cases in the region: 10 in Rotorua, 48 in the Western Bay of Plenty, six in Taupō, and one in the Eastern Bay, all of which have recovered.

The Alert Level system was introduced to the country on March 23 and 48 hours later, the country was ordered into lockdown.

Advertise with NZME.

Everyone was instructed to stay at home in their bubbles unless they were essential workers or going out for essential reasons.

Covid-19 shook the health sector and as new information flooded in constantly, stress and anxiety about the new virus increased in the essential sector.

Hospitals implemented no visitor policies and created Covid-19 wards. Movement within hospitals was controlled, non-clinical staff worked from home.

Te Puke general practitioner, Dr Joe Bourne, was pulled into the pool of health professionals meeting in early March about creating community-based assessment centres.

Advertise with NZME.

Bourne said the lockdown led to a strong sense of camaraderie. Every time there was a case in the community, health workers jumped into contact tracing mode.

"A bit of that is exciting because how do we rapidly reconfigure the health system to be able to respond and it really forced us to work in different ways together across the health system."

Bourne, who was made the Bay of Plenty District Health Board incident controller, was proud to see public health, community-based health services, and hospital-based services mix with non-government organisations including iwi providers for the first time.

"It was massive, and we've seen other countries where ... because they haven't been able to effectively contact trace and that's led to widespread community infection."

Despite a relatively low number of cases compared to other regions, there was still a large amount of testing, Bourne said.

Covid-19 is still front and centre of Bourne's mind - he now works with the Ministry of Health as the immunisation programme's clinical lead.

He said there hadn't been much time to think about the lockdown anniversary but confirmed he was looking towards the future with caution.

"There will always be something else that will happen. While we hope there'll never be another lockdown, there might be.

Advertise with NZME.

"It's about managing people's expectations and maintaining the community's confidence that whatever comes up next, we'll respond to it. We don't need to panic."

Mainfreight Tauranga truck driver Greg Camenzind was also considered an essential worker and made the decision to self-isolate. He sacrificed being around his 2-year-old son during lockdown and welcomed the drop in alert levels and reunion with his son.

"It was tough going for a bit."

With roads deserted - apart from other essential travellers - getting around was easier this time last year.

"It was basically like living in the Mount 20 years ago, how quiet it was … now it's just busy and takes an hour to get anywhere."

While he was glad to be "back to normal," he said lockdown brought people back to basics and gave them an appreciation for what was important.

"I think everyone forgot how to relax."

While Camenzind managed to keep his job during and after lockdown, not everyone was as lucky.

The number of work-ready people on the jobseeker benefit in the Bay of Plenty increased by 3444 in the past year.

As of February, there were 11,166 people on the benefit, up from 7722 in March last year. The figure peaked in December at 11,466.

Tauranga Community Foodbank manager Nicki Goodwin said the foodbank helped 17,249 people and issued 6247 food parcels in the past year, reflecting a 33 per cent increase in demand in two years.

However, with the high demand came generosity with the annual Bay of Plenty Christmas Appeal in December raising more than $250,000 in just six weeks.

Tauranga Principals' Association president and Tauriko School principal Suzanne Billington said families were dealing with additional hardships and more kids were showing up with anxiety post-lockdown.

While they're working through that now, she remembered school families coming together to make the best of the unprecedented situation with principals rallying in online groups to share thoughts and decisions and parents pulling their weight to strengthen the home-school relationship.

Staff constantly thought about fun ways to connect with students and their families, and many schools prepared fun videos to give families a laugh, she said.

School communities ensured students had resources for quality learning and principals worked tirelessly to put plans in place for each alert level.

Schools now continue to use aspects of online learning personalised to each student and have a better system of moving through levels seamlessly.

But looking at the students now, she said there were greater levels of anxiety in children, and schools were also aware of the additional stress and hardship on families bearing the brunt of the economic impacts.

Wellbeing is now at the forefront with constant monitoring of students, families and staff, and ways to get the right support.

Tauranga solo-dad Tim Murdoch has had to work with his son's anxiety which developed after coming out of the lockdown and lasted the year.

He said they steered away from television and video games and made sure to stay active, and he involved his son in everything, from runs and bike rides together to painting the fence.

The challenge was finding things to keep his son mentally and physically active during the lockdown.

The family moved back to the Bay of Plenty after lockdown and his son started at a new school and became increasingly anxious which was out of character.

"There was a point there where he didn't want to go to school."

He developed nervous ticks like shaking his head and quick breaths, he became more talkative, would complain more, would lash out when frustrated and didn't know how to express his feelings.