Confident, optimistic, anxious: New Zealand readers tell us how they feel about Omicron

People walking in Cornwall Park, Auckland. New Zealanders say are feeling some trepidation at the nation’s expected spread of Covid, while others expressed a sense of inevitability and relief. Photograph: Phil Walter/Getty Images

This week we asked Guardian New Zealand readers about the arrival of Omicron and how they are feeling and preparing. Hundreds of New Zealanders wrote in, about their hopes and anxieties, preparations and frustrations, confidence and worries.

The country has spent almost two years relatively sheltered from the pandemic’s worst effects, and many said they felt some trepidation at the prospect of widespread Covid, and the threat it could pose to the country’s small health system, as well as its immunocompromised or under-vaccinated communities. Some were concerned about divisions the pandemic had produced: between the vaccinated and unvaccinated, those inside the border and those locked out.