Both of NZ’s Post COVID Futures Are Bad: Part Three

What about a vaccine?

For those pinning their hopes on a vaccine there is some bad news. Firstly, a vaccine is not likely to be ready until mid-2021 at the earliest and New Zealand has chewed through over $10.9 billion dollars in 10 weeks. Secondly (and more critically) there is a very strong possibility there will never be a vaccine for COVID-19. 

Humans have never managed to create a vaccine for any of the many coronaviruses. Even the WHO admits there may never be a vaccine. This is highly problematic because the government seems to be relying on a vaccine as its exit strategy and Ardern has warned border restrictions will probably last until a vaccine is developed. There are also highly vexed questions about a COVID-19 vaccine including:

a) Can the government compel the population to be vaccinated? (There is a large anti-vaxx movement in New Zealand); and

b) Should the 99.99% of the population that is healthy accept a vaccine for a virus that is extraordinarily unlikely to ever make them even mildly sick; and

c) Is it is morally or even legally defensible to restrict travel for those who don’t accept a rushed vaccine, effectively turning them into prisoners in New Zealand? 

What Now?

The consequences of New Zealand’s improvised response to COVID-19 are now coming home to roost. Panicked by hysterical media coverage, the terrified public demanded a lockdown and the Ardern government responded; burning down our metaphorical house and causing immense economic carnage. Then, riding high on Stockholm Syndrome-like support and reinforcing it with the false narrative that it went “hard and early” (it did not by the way), Ardern painted herself (and the country) into a corner. If she lifts the restrictions and COVID-19 breaks out again she must force New Zealanders back into lockdown or admit that the first lockdown was a mistake and the sacrifices were for nought. Or she reopens the border and we end up in the same place. Richard Prebble, former Labour Minister, correctly observed:

…politicians rarely acknowledge mistakes. Governments spend millions of dollars, good money after bad, to avoid admitting a mistake. Governments rarely go broke and so can go on trading in insolvency to the point where ministers, if they were directors, would be facing imprisonment

[paywalled at the NBR]

New Zealand now faces a very dark future. It is possible of course that some unforeseen miracle, some deus ex machina, may occur and we are rescued, but reality doesn’t typically mirror the positive endings of Hollywood movies.

Our country is in peril, and the only path out of the trap is for our leaders (political and academic) to admit they made a terrible mistake. That mistake is the refusal to recognise the obvious truth that COVID-19 is not, when you look at the big picture, especially dangerous. This is the key to getting out of this mess. Once you recognise that COVID-19 only affects a tiny portion of the population you can start to craft policy responses that actually deal to the problem in a logical, coherent fashion: for example by re-opening the border but heavily protecting rest homes, where up to 80% of the deaths have occurred. Until we do this, however, nothing will change because we are fighting the wrong enemy.

I am not holding my breath for a sudden attack of sanity among our ruling elite. For the pre-eminent example of why see this excellent article by the Prime Minister’s chief science adviser, Professor Juliet Gerrard. Professor Gerrard does a superb job of analysing the issues New Zealand faces about re-opening the border but completely fails to test or even question the core assumption of how lethal COVID-19 is in the first place. I simply do not understand how you can be a scientist, let alone the Chief Scientist, when you make mistakes that fundamental. If that is the Prime Minister’s Chief Science advisor we can safely assume the ship is captain-less.

The Future

I am reluctant to ever make predictions because by definition they are almost certain to be wrong. However, in this case I am going to loosely sketch what I believe New Zealand’s likely future looks like. COVID-19 will burn its way through the rest of the world – it is unstoppable. In New Zealand Ardern’s political pony is now firmly hitched to COVID-19. Politically, she cannot admit the mistakes she has made. Supported by academics with zero political or economic understanding and beloved by a feckless media, she will bluster her way through to the election while trying to distract from data that shows a) the world is slowly shaking off COVID-19 and b) New Zealand’s economy is sinking into a quagmire.

I can’t guess the multi-factorial outcomes of an MMP election: a lot will depend on how long it takes for the economic damage reports to reach the public’s ears and how much Ardern can block up those ears with debt-fuelled government hand-outs. Eventually however, whoever is in power in New Zealand will have to accept the inevitable. They will have to re-open the borders and watch COVID-19 do what it has done everywhere else: slightly shorten the long lives of a small number of already very sick old people. Their deaths will be tragic and very public (unlike those for example of cancer sufferers whose treatment was delayed by the lockdown). The ship of New Zealand will come to rest exactly where it would have otherwise, COVID-19 will be among us causing little harm to all but a handful, but we will be vastly indebted, causing harm to many.

And Ardern? My guess is that she will fly off to the UN to where people still believe her fairy tales, while the rest of us keep living the horror story she penned for us.

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