How people have responded to the pandemic gives us hope we can cope with uncertainty and change, wherever it comes from.
Opinion: Last week our youngest got Covid and we are now, probably like many of you, facing an uncertain period of illness and isolation. Also last week Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. It must be the most terrifying time for the Ukrainian and Russian people.
For many of the rest of us, the world seems more of an uncertain place than it has in the past two years. Yet people's responses to these very different challenges have given me hope that most of us can cope. To act together pragmatically and responsibly in the face of the big uncertainties that will continue to come at us.
The uncertainty of Covid
The smallest member of the family came down with heavy cold-like symptoms after a case in her class at primary school last week. After a flurry of messages to various friends, on Monday morning we had a rapid antigen test (hard to get hold of here in Wellington), and got the double red lines. Bugger! It means at least 10 days at home with the kids.
Neither my partner nor I are sure about what happens next – will we all get Covid? Then what? What happens if we get it one after the other? What about work? The uncertainty is stressful and hard to plan for.
What has helped is the many people who offered to help us, and who have gone out of their way to do what they can. People at work are being super flexible – we planned for this (I just didn't think it would be me first), now here it is. Plus, we are vaccinated.
In the face of all the uncertainty over the past few years, I am so grateful for the problem solving that has gone into creating vaccinations that will help keep the worst of Covid at bay for my family. I am grateful for all the people who are vaccinated. As the saying goes, it's not vaccines that protect our health, it is the people who get vaccinated.
There really is nothing any of us can do to predict the course this wily virus will take next. Though we can't assume much, we can (and should) plan for the worst. What the vaccination story tells me is that in uncertainty most people will act together with a willingness to embrace the knowledge we have.
Throughout this pandemic I have seen most people adapt their thinking and behaviour faster than I would have thought possible in the face of such rapid and unpredictable change in our world. When my GP rang to let us know we were now under their care, she said: “What I know now is different from what I knew last week, and that will change again, but I will let you know.”
And that was enough for me. To know she would be honest about not knowing but vigilant about acting on what she did know because she cared.
In uncertain times, some people will try to insist on certainty from people in government, or workplaces, or scientists – people who cannot give it. However, the best responses I have seen to the pandemic, both individual and within institutions, involve finding ways to act with certainty where we have knowledge and an ability to do so, but not claiming false certainty where we don’t.
The uncertainty of Putin
There is much uncertainty in the invasion of Ukraine by Russia too. Putin appears unpredictable in all the worst ways to most of us. What will he do with those nuclear weapons?
Yet what people are doing is coming together to condemn his actions and to use the tools they do have available. Ukrainians and Russians are showing incredible bravery fighting the invasion in different ways.
While the speed at which people in governments and business have acted to cut off Putin and his economic base is quite stark, I have no idea if this will work. I do know it makes me hopeful when many people across institutions and civil society act swiftly and decisively in the face of uncertainty to take the action we can to protect people we don't know, and values we share.
What comes next is our ability to act
This week I have no idea what the next 10 days, 10 months or 10 years will look like. I do know the challenges are going to keep rolling. I write this a lot because I need to: climate change and environmental destruction will not stop until we act to stop it.
We need to collaborate at a scale and pace on solutions that seem far-fetched right now.
Yet the evidence is all around us that most of us have it in us to do this even as the uncertainty sits heavily, and the fear may overcome some.
