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Dr. Siouxsie Wiles knows that you need to slow down, but acknowledges that it doesn’t come naturally.
“For me, it just became, ‘What can I do to help?'”
The neon pink haired microbiologist has become a familiar source of reassurance during the Covid-19 pandemic, a safe haven where New Zealanders have been able to access simple and easy-to-digest information about the virus.
It’s a role I was used to as an associate professor and science communicator, but not quite on this scale. When China started building hospitals to treat the disease, and doctors in Italy were deciding who to ventilate, “it became very clear that this was something very different.”
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On Tuesday night, Wiles took home the supreme winner of the Stuff-Westpac NZ 2020 Women of Influence Awards, as well as the award for innovation in science and health.
Talking to Things The next day, after a morning of meetings, Wiles said it was an honor to accept the award with a nudge and a reminder that Covid-19 “is not over yet.”
The justices said that Wiles’ accessible and evidence-based commentary on staying safe during the pandemic helped ease the nation’s anxiety and became the foundation of the World Health Organization’s communication tools.
But assuming that mantle has not been without sacrifice.
RICKY WILSON
Siouxsie Wiles, Supreme Winner of the Women of Influence Awards.
Covid-19 has been integral to Wiles for the past 10 months.
From the moment his phone started ringing from the virus in January, there have been few days without Covid for Wiles.
Even when he’s not getting calls from the media, which at his peak was more than 30 a day, Wiles is reading, taking it all in.
It’s partly selfish, he says. You want to know what is happening in the UK, where your parents have been living in a suspended state of lockdown all year, and what other countries are doing.
He has almost completely drifted away from his regular job, running the Bioluminescent Superbugs Laboratory at the University of Auckland.
“I feel as far away from my actual laboratory and research as I have ever felt.”
Wiles studied medical microbiology at the University of Edinburgh, followed by a doctorate in microbiology at Oxford and Napier University. He spent nearly a decade at the Imperial College of London, before moving to New Zealand in 2009.
Wiles has made regular appearances in the media since then, including during the 2011 E. coli outbreak in Germany or the Fonterra botulism scare in 2013, and last year he was named a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services in microbiology and scientific communication.
RICKY WILSON / Stuff
Covid-19 has infiltrated the life of Dr. Siouxsie Wiles, but she does not back down.
Even now, when things are largely settled with New Zealand at alert level 1, Wiles is thinking about how they will need her next.
“Next year will be about vaccines … I feel like I am going to spend a significant amount of my time making sure everyone understands what is going on, so we are all on the same page.”
Ensuring that New Zealanders have relevant information and can counter misinformation is a priority for Wiles.
But between relentless media interviews, reading, and his regular job, Wiles hasn’t had much time to do other things he enjoys, like going for a bike ride or playing with Lego.
Wiles says his family has endured the brunt of his voice and his visibility during the pandemic.
“It must be difficult for them, but they are very supportive. They see that this is important to me, they see the value in it, ”he says.
Wiles hasn’t had many weekends in recent months and says, “I feel like I have to start slowing down a bit … it’s not sustainable.”
After the first lockdown, Wiles, her husband Steven Galbraith, a mathematics professor at the University of Auckland, and their daughter bought a ping-pong table and got “pretty good” playing most days, but their workload finally won.
However, he is quick to divert attention from his work and prominence: “I feel like everyone is in the same boat, right?
“Everyone is working, those who are still working are juggling 101 things, children, homeschooling, [there’s] all kinds of things happening. “
She, like many of us, is looking forward to the holidays, but knows the luxury that reality is given to most of the world.
“It’s very scary to see cases just explode,” Wiles says of nations like the UK and the US, which continue to see “exponential” increases.
The juxtaposition between those countries and life in New Zealand is jarring, he says, and as a result, some people become disconnected from reality.
But “I feel like it’s my job not to disconnect, I can’t ignore this.”
Wiles says that Covid-19 made clear how important scientific communication is and highlighted the work of academics across the country, at a time when universities under financial pressure are destroying departments.
Even with promising vaccine candidates on the horizon, Wiles says we need to be realistic about how long the process could take and that it may not guarantee New Zealand will be open to the market again.
During a recent Skype call with his parents, Wiles’s mother said she wasn’t sure when they would see each other again. That is the reality of the pandemic and she says it is her responsibility and privilege to remind others.
