Last week took many of us by surprise to learn the Delta variant of Covid had made its way into the NZ community. As the number of close contacts are still rising, this tough, level 4 lockdown begins to make more sense.

No doubt many of you, like I, are tuning in for the daily 1pm government updates on TV to see how things are progressing. Most of us at Audiology South are fortunate to live in supportive bubbles to help one another through, however, we realise not everyone is as fortunate! If you are alone, without support, please reach out to us for help. In the long run, this lockdown will be for the best for us all, including our senior generation and those with greater health needs. 

In the meantime, we trust that you’re keeping safe and our collective response will eradicate this virus. For this special edition of the Sounding Board, we have included lots of tips and strategies to communicate well with someone with a hearing loss over the lockdown when we are tending to spend more time together. We’ve also included tips on how to reconnect smartphones with Bluetooth enabled hearing aids- a common question we get asked each day in clinic. 

Happy reading and we wish people good health in this most unusual time. 

Simon Melville