Young people have had their lives restricted at a time when the world should be our oyster. Photo / 123rf
Young people have had their lives restricted at a time when the world should be our oyster. Photo / 123rf
Opinion by Georgina Campbell
Georgina Campbell is a Wellington-based reporter who has a particular interest in local government, transport, and seismic issues. She joined the Herald in 2019 after working as a broadcast journalist.
Young people have been ripped off by Covid-19 and it seems that a lot of the time no one really cares.
I'm a 28-year-old and I can feel the virus eating away at the rest of my twenties and what could have been.
New Zealand's response to the pandemic has saved lives and that's something to be proud of and grateful for, especially in 2020, but it has come at a cost.
That cost can be counted in many ways. One of them is the fact that young people have had their lives restricted at a time when the world should be our oyster.
Being able to dance at a night club, go overseas, afford a house, and see our friends could all be considered privileges in the grand scheme of things, nevertheless they are privileges many before us have freely enjoyed when we have not.
We shouldn't discount these restrictions as insignificant or minimise how devastating they have been.
I resent our vaccine rollout being so slow. Last year when Delta was breathing down our necks I was in the last age group to become eligible for the vaccine.
I booked my first jab as soon as possible and I moved my second vaccine forward a week when we were told we could do so.
I wanted to scream at the vaccination pamphlet which said "New Zealand is in a fortunate position of not having to rush the vaccine roll-out because of the huge effort we have put into protecting each other".
Teams administrating vaccine at the Ora Toa Covid-19 drive-through vaccination clinic in the carpark at the North Mall City Plaza, Porirua. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The message felt smug and it turned out to be very wrong.
Even after being proactive, I am still not yet eligible for my booster shot because I had to wait so long to start with.
I accept that young people are less at risk of becoming really sick if they get Covid-19, but surely they also deserve at least the chance to have had their booster shot when facing this Omicron outbreak.
Especially because New Zealand had so much time to ready itself for the inevitable next wave of the virus after we first eliminated it.
Even more so because many of us are part of the working population. We can't shut ourselves up in our houses which have made hundreds of thousands of dollars in capital gains. We have to work.
Frustratingly, the economy that is relying on us is no friend of young people.
Inflation has hit a 30-year high of 5.9 per cent and interest rates are going up.
It's a very scary reality for any of us who have just managed to get onto the housing ladder and are now mortgaged up to our eyeballs living in million-dollar-homes which were only $600,000 a few years ago.
Houses in Wellington City are now well over the million-dollar mark. Photo / File
For those of us who are yet to get on the property ladder, we're now dealing with new lending changes which came into force at the end of last year.
People have reported having mortgage approvals declined for reasons as simple as a trip to Bunnings, or having too many subscriptions like Netflix, despite being apparently creditworthy.
It seems unbelievable that in our already heavily restricted lives we can't even buy a cup of coffee if we want to secure a permanent roof over our heads, yet this is our reality.
The rental market is sickening. The latest Trade Me figures from December show Wellington City's median weekly rent was $640, just shy of its all-time high of $645 recorded in October.
Even worse, Porirua remains the most expensive district to rent in the country after its median weekly rent hit a record high of $700.
Hundreds of people can descend on an online listing in a matter of days.
We're fighting a losing battle as the divide between those who have assets and those who don't widens.
Meanwhile, the Government has borrowed billions of dollars to pay for the Covid-19 response and we are the ones who will be paying that off over the course of our working lives.
When Covid-19 first arrived at our door, I understand the most pressing issue was dealing with its immediate effect. The difference between life and death is stark and confronting.
With Omicron now knocking on our door, it's easy to return to the uneasy feelings of 2020 when the virus first emerged.
But our fight with the virus is no longer so black and white, especially now we have a vaccine. We must turn our minds to the shades of life we will be left with.
Cancelled events and not being able to travel is one thing, a generation defined by inequality is another.
