Kristina Kardum joins to share a first hand account of what pandemic life is like in Europe with the hope of stimulating a healthy conversation around the handling of the pandemic in Australia. Kristina's intention is to encourage people to ask: can we do it better? As various psychological support services across Australia continue to sound the alarm, the mental health toll is mounting and the warning signs can't be ignored. It has been distressing to watch the situation in Australia unfold, knowing full well that the collateral damage being caused will likely have longer term impacts on the communities in which we live. Kristina Kardum is visiting Zurich, Switzerland where she previously resided for 5 years & worked in Swiss private banking. Previous to that, Kristina spent several years in investment banking in Germany. Having landed in Zurich from Sydney recently, it immediately struck me how relatively normal life appears to be here & how little anxiety, tension & worry people seem to exhibit. Kristina was surprised to learn that compared to Australia, with less than 58% of the population fully vaccinated & a current daily infection count of over 1300, everything remains open. It begs the questions: what are they doing differently? What's working? And what can we learn? With Europe going into winter which usually sees a spike in illness, recent changes mean that access to indoor dining & venues require a Covid certificate (proof of either vaccination, recovery from covid infection or negative test). Importantly, however - access is open to all & no discrimination is practiced. This sensible approach means that orderliness is maintained & the locals appear to be relatively more at ease than what we've witnessed in Australia. It is high time we took a big picture view of how this pandemic is affecting the overall wellbeing of Australians and what could be done to manage this situation better. I believe that stimulating a healthy discussion will lead us in that direction.

Asia Pacific Today. November 5, 2021

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