COVID Information in Australia & the Netherlands
By Tessa Pang | Magazine | April 19, 2022
Cover Illustration: COVID-19 statistics. Markus Spiske / Pexels
Magazine Reporter Tessa Pang recalls her experience and anxiety with the differences in the flow of COVID information when moving from Sydney, a city in total lockdown, to Amsterdam, a city with barely any COVID-restrictions.
When I moved to Amsterdam in mid-July 2021, the first few days were a complete shock. I had just moved from Sydney in the middle of what would be a 15-week-long lockdown – one of the strictest and longest in the world – to a place with barely any restrictions. Facemasks seemed to be something that nobody cared about. On one of my first days in Amsterdam, I remember having a downright panic attack while shopping at Zara on the Damrak on a Saturday afternoon, not used to being surrounded by so many people.
The change in the level of COVID-19 restrictions was a shock. But what was an even greater surprise was how quickly I was able to forget my old COVID routine and the sense of anxiety that accompanied it.
In Sydney, every day was the same. At 11 am I would watch the daily press conference to get a full rundown of the statistics – the case numbers, the hospitalizations, the deaths, the vaccination rate. I would then go to the government website and track the location of each case – one at my local grocery store, one at the bus that I often take (but luckily not at the exact time when I took it), five at the shopping center and the list goes on.
It was like being in a game of Minesweeper – I was immersed in the sea of red digits.
“It was like being in a game of Minesweeper – I was immersed in the sea of red digits.”
At first, I found the overload of information comforting. The unparalleled level of tracking every case made it feel like getting down to COVID-zero was a possibility. But as the cases continued to spin out of control, the daily 11 am ritual became a source of anxiety. The list of hotspots just grew longer by the day. I feared receiving the dreaded text that I had been at a hotspot, I feared having to self-isolate and most of all, feared to unknowingly spread it to someone at risk.
Within days of moving to Amsterdam, I felt my fear of COVID dissipate entirely. I realized that my COVID-related anxiety had nothing to do with the actual prevalence of the disease. At the time, the chances of getting COVID were far higher in Europe than they were in Australia. However, the sense of personal responsibility was rather linked to the amount of COVID information I had constantly thrown at me.
In Amsterdam, it was easy to pretend that COVID didn’t really exist. The reporting on COVID-19 was virtually nonexistent. We didn’t have to check in at cafes or bars. No one contacted you whenever there was a case in your local area. I just saw COVID as something that might impact me, but not necessarily something I could ‘game’ by dodging or pre-empting. (I do recognize I am in an incredibly privileged position to be able to say that.)
It made me curious to know if other Australians, who had moved during the lockdown, experienced the same quick decline in anxiety. Was this attitude change towards COVID a common thing for people in a situation similar to mine? Read PART 2, to find out what my fellow Australians think!
Tessa Pang is a student at the University of Amsterdam. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Amsterdammer.
