Nau mai haere mai – welcome to this week’s newsletter.

As we’ve all come to appreciate over the past 18 months, science is central to any successful pandemic strategy or policy. What’s also becoming evident, however, is that language is crucial too. How we define and describe things matters greatly when it comes to fighting a virus and saving lives.

Most recently, the debate over whether New Zealand has abandoned its elimination strategy quickly became a semantic argument about what elimination actually means, why it’s not the same as eradication, and whether loosening restrictions while cases of community transmission persist is a sign of pragmatism or capitulation.

But nowhere is precision of language more important than when discussing how we might “learn to live with COVID”. As this sobering explanation makes clear, to claim the virus will eventually become “endemic” like the common cold or flu is to profoundly misunderstand what endemic really means.

One common misconception seems to be that it is synonymous with “manageable”. But as the authors bluntly put it, “A disease becomes endemic when it is more or less always present in a population. It does not care whether it is manageable.” And Delta is very far from manageable.

For that reason, the promise of vaccination mandates for health and education workers was mostly welcomed this week. And, as Matheson Russell writes here, the language of ethics is just as important in justifying the use of mandates – and the consequences for those who choose not to be vaccinated.

Until next time, whatever your level and wherever your bubble, ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa.

Finlay Macdonald

New Zealand Senior Editor & NZ Editor: Politics, Business + Arts

Hannah Peters/Getty Images

Why we must not allow COVID to become endemic in New Zealand

John Donne Potter, Massey University; Graham Le Gros, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington; Rod Jackson, University of Auckland

If COVID-19 becomes endemic, we’ll see multiple local outbreaks. Schools and businesses will close for days because too many people are sick. Local hospitals will be overwhelmed without warning.

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To be truly ethical, vaccine mandates must be about more than just lifting jab rates

Matheson Russell, University of Auckland

If mandatory vaccination means exclusion from certain activities in life, sometimes that’s just the price of sticking to one’s convictions.

Taiwanese helicopters fly above Taipei rehearsing for a national celebration day, October 5. GettyImages

Taiwan is becoming a flashpoint for China and the West – how does New Zealand respond?

Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato

Forced to balance traditional alliances with its trade-dependent relationship with China, New Zealand walks a fine diplomatic line over Taiwan.

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Children live online more than ever – we need better definitions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ screen time

Kathryn MacCallum, University of Canterbury; Cheryl Brown, University of Canterbury

Lockdowns and learning from home have further embedded digital technology in young people’s lives. Educational theory and practice need to catch up fast.

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Putting Aotearoa on the map: New Zealand has changed its name before, why not again?

Claire Breen, University of Waikato; Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato; Robert Joseph, University of Waikato; Valmaine Toki, University of Waikato

New Zealand was named almost by historical accident, and there have been various versions used in the past. But a complete change would still need greater public support.

From our international editions

How your emotional response to the COVID-19 pandemic changed your behavior and your sense of time

Philip Gable, University of Delaware; Chris Wendel, University of Alabama

For the first 12 months of the pandemic, a team of researchers tracked the relationship between emotions, time perception and health-related behaviors like wearing a mask.

Suddenly we are in the middle of a global energy crisis. What happened?

Lurion De Mello, Macquarie University

Extreme weather is behind much of the crisis, but it will make the transition to new energy sources more complicated.

Keeping workers COVID-safe requires more than just following public health orders

Stephen Duckett, Grattan Institute

Employers need to go beyond the public health orders to ensure their workers are safe from COVID. Here are four key areas to focus on.

Indigenous Peoples Day: Why it’s replacing Columbus Day in many places

Susan C. Faircloth, Colorado State University

A growing number of states are recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day on what has traditionally been Columbus Day. An education scholar weighs in on what this means for America’s schools.

North Korea’s costly COVID response is pushing Kim Jong-un to play political games

Niki JP Alsford, University of Central Lancashire

Kim Jong-un is simultaneously projecting different images domestically and internationally as food shortages and economic hardship rise.

COVID: why are people testing positive on lateral flow tests then negative on PCR?

Christian Yates, University of Bath

The reason for these results has yet to be confirmed – but maths may explain the phenomenon.

Fostering girls’ education will be challenging under a Taliban regime, but Afghanistan can learn a lot from Indonesia

M Niaz Asadullah, University of Malaya

Indonesia can serve as an important model for the Taliban of how Muslim nations and faith-based organisations can play a big role in expanding girls’ education.

Space exploration should aim for peace, collaboration and co-operation, not war and competition

Kuan-Wei Chen, McGill University; Ram S. Jakhu, McGill University; Steven Freeland, Western Sydney University

As the space race is resumed, and expanded to include private corporations, it is more important than ever to lay the groundwork for peaceful collaboration.

‘History wars’ in the U.S. and Canada provoked by a racial reckoning with the past

Ian Rocksborough-Smith, University of The Fraser Valley

Movements that challenge former national icons demonstrate the importance of history-making in an age of racial reconciliation. But ‘history wars’ won’t get us anywhere.

Malaria vaccine is a major leap forward: but innovation mustn’t stop here

Jaishree Raman, National Institute for Communicable Diseases; Shüné Oliver, National Institute for Communicable Diseases

The successful development of an effective vaccine against the deadliest form of malaria that is most common in sub-Saharan Africa is indeed a major achievement.