It is interesting that in response to parliamentary questions the Minister of Health believed that wellbeing had dipped slightly during March and April 2020 in alert level 4 but quickly recovered as alert levels decreased and then returned to pre-COVID levels. Maybe that's the reason why we haven't had any increase in mental health support since the lockdown in 2020. Yet the research by Dr Susanna Every-Palmer from Otago University showed that we have still an escalated level of emotional distress in the community even when lockdown levels were reduced and restrictions in place were taken away. 