Accepting viruses and our baking shortcomings

Otago Daily Times

22-07-2025

Realising I am not genetically superior was a let-down.
In the end, I could only blame myself.
I had started to believe my own mythmaking. Never a good idea.
For the first few years of Covid-19 infections romping through the country, my vaccinated self managed to avoid it.
There were some close calls, including the time I was part of a group which spent an enjoyable evening around a circular dining table opposite a man who tested positive for the virus the next day. He had been sneezing too, put down at the time to an allergy to the resident dog.
While my two half-sisters had both contracted Covid, my two full siblings were Novids, despite exposure to it, hence my delusions of our genetic superiority. (The Auckland-dwelling sister's avoidance was particularly impressive since all of the time she has worked in a front-line health reception role.)
Earlier this year, she was finally laid low with a hefty dose of it. I told myself she must have been already under the weather.
I pushed away thoughts my Covid-free days might be numbered too.
When I experienced symptoms a few weeks later, I convinced myself it was a cold, only deciding to check after someone told me of an annoying work acquaintance always insisting they didn't have Covid, but never bothering to test.
When the lines showed up on the rapid antigen test, I didn't believe them.
I wastefully repeated the test. The lines were there again. Damn.
As it turned out, my symptoms were mild, and I was grateful I was well enough to continue with my writing work at home as usual.
The experience made me ponder anew about our Covid-19 response and the bitterness still felt about it by some — in particular, the vitriol still hurled at former prime minister Jacinda Ardern because of her government's handling of this event.
Its persistence baffles me.
She has not claimed she got everything right in the pandemic response but points out "we don't get to see the counterfactual, the outcome of the decisions we didn't make. The lives that might have been lost".
Did the frenzy of Jacindamania lead some people to believe she was a saint; some sort of omnipotent being who could do no wrong?
Was her talk of kindness too much? (A wise character in Fredrik Backman's latest book My Friends , says "kind people were the worst, because at least with mean people you know what you're dealing with. There's no limit to how dangerous someone who seems kind can be.")
Were they disappointed to find out she was flawed and fallible like anyone else? That, no Virginia, there is not a Santa Claus?
To those critics who will no doubt accuse her of behaving as if she thought she was omnipotent, my suggestion would be to be open-minded enough to read her book.
Some reviews have spent more time dwelling on what is not there, or what they wanted it to be, such as a blow-by-blow account of her time in the top job.
Since it is a memoir, it was up to her to choose what she put in and what she left out.
She has not itemised everything that happened in the Covid response, but vividly conveys the uncertainty, the enormity of the task facing the government, the relentlessness of the ever-changing scenarios, and even the impact it had on her ability to be present in play with her toddler daughter Neve when her head was full of Covid-related graphs.
Many women will be able to relate to Dame Jacinda's struggles with morning sickness, breastfeeding, and being torn between their job and their role as a mother.
These are issues which do not go away when you are a prime minister, even if you have a great support team, as she did.
As someone who never ventured near the contents of the iconic Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book ( I knew my limits), I remember being irked by Dame Jacinda's postings about her birthday cake constructions for Neve.
"You don't need to be super mum and the Prime Minister," I wanted to scream
I feel kinder after reading about it, understanding it as an example of the sort of silly pressure mothers feel.
She knew nobody expected her to bake a cake, but she saw it as part of a list of "Mum" things she needed to tick off.
Maybe it is time to cut her some slack, in all areas of her life, and to acknowledge what she and her government got right and learn from what they got wrong.
In the same way I have had to come to terms with not being genetically superior and therefore immune to Covid-19, we could accept she is not a demon or a god.
• Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.