The Covid-19 Pandemic

Covid-19 was a worldwide spread pandemic that affected the entire world. Globally, New Zealand's Covid-19 response is regarded as a success, throughout the course of the pandemic, New Zealand changed its strategy. The first strategy was elimination, then it shifted to minimisation, and lastly to protection, this was because of the new challenges faced by the changing virus. New Zealand was one of the early countries who went into lockdown, on the 21st of March 2020, using a four-tier alert level system. Covid-19 negatively affected New Zealand a lot, with GDP significantly decreasing which led to a big impact on the whole country.

But there were some positive aspects of lockdown that happened during Covid-19 on whanau and communities of New Zealand:

• We became more creative to maintain a good mental health during lockdown. We did this by exercising often, going outside everyday, finding new hobbies and doing more of the things that we enjoy.
• We spent more time enjoying doing daily tasks and activities with our whanau. For example cooking dinner together, baking, going to the beach, playing games.
• We became closer as a community. This is because during these tough times we had to be there to support each other, for example if a neighbour was sick from Covid-19, we would find a way to help them out to support them, we would also often check up on our friends by calling or texting them.
• Lockdown also had a great positive impact on the environment because of cars and other transport not being used as much, therefore there was a lot less pollution.

Covid-19 and lockdown also left a positive affect for the future of New Zealand. Because of how we had to adapt to lockdown, in the future we will be more creative with our ways of doing things, spend more time with our loved ones, become a more supportive community and be more mindful of the environment.