Households should add masks to their emergency supply kits in the case of further Covid-19 outbreak, Health Minister Chris Hipkins says.
They do not need to be medical-grade masks, he said. It comes as New Zealand recorded no new Covid cases in the past 24 hours.
If New Zealand moves to alert level 2, at that point Kiwis will be encouraged to wear masks where physical distancing isn’t possible, like on public transport.
Hipkins said the change in opinion on masks was reflective of updated WHO guidance.
Hang on just a gosh darned minute!
Why do we need to buy masks?
Didn’t the PM tell us we had beaten the virus?
If we need masks, does that mean they’ve failed us?
So did the “Stamp it out-Keep it out” strategy work or not?
If we are to believe the Prime Minister we eliminated the virus and we can trust her, because hugs, kindness. So, why are we being warned about community outbreak now?
They’ve either failed and lied to us, or they are scare-mongering.
Hipkins said he “utterly reject that” the Government is scaremongering, as they’ve been accused by National.
“I would encourage Gerry Brownlee to swap the tinfoil hat for a face mask”.
Perhaps, maybe Gerry is right.
The Government told us that they are the one source of truth, that we should only believe them, and they said we had eliminated the virus, that the “Stamp it out-Keep it out” strategy had been successful.
If there is now talk of community transmission that means they’ve failed, which is going to make the trust us, policy free campaign the Government is going to run somewhat perilous.
And if the previous strategy has failed, like it looks like it has, then why do they think more of the same will work?
Perhaps we should be looking for alternative strategies, like those of Sweden.
Just a month ago, Sweden was labeled the “world’s cautionary tale” for its laissez-faire approach to fighting the coronavirus. It famously decided not to close its schools, restaurants or bars, and it told its citizens that there’s no need to mask-up. When the death toll surged in late April, and the country looked overmatched by the fast-moving virus, its officials sounded defensive.
The country’s Public Health Agency developed and implemented Sweden’s approach, and its chief epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, became the face of the crisis.
While other countries were locking down shops, schools, and public life, Sweden was the outlier, trying to manage the disease with the least possible impact on the economy. The prominent Swedish virologist Lena Einhorn, for one, called the Sweden approach “madness.” Seeing the mortality rate climb in Sweden, Norway decided to close its border with its chief trading partner.
By a per-capita basis, the coronavirus outbreak in Sweden has been one of the world’s deadliest—worse than the United States, France, or any Nordic neighbor. But in the past six weeks, Sweden has seen a remarkable turnaround. New daily cases are down to multi-month lows. Hospital admissions are close to zero, and just 44 Swedes died of COVID-19 in the past seven days, official numbers show. At the same time, coronavirus cases are spiking around continental Europe.
New COVID cases in Sweden have been consistently flat over the past month while spikes in Spain and the UK have alarmed politicians and medical professionals.
Tegnell feels vindicated by the latest batch of promising data.
Last week, he told reporters that masks are not necessary in Sweden. In an interview with Fortune this week, he doubled down on that message, saying the sustained flattening of the curve tells him to not change a thing about the country’s mask strategy—or anything else for that matter.
“We don’t have to introduce masks right now. Because, with a down-going trend,” he said, “it’s not the time to introduce new measures.”
The problem with masks is stupid people, not the masks, and we have a great many of those in New Zealand.
Tegnell has reviewed the body of research and isn’t convinced the mask is an effective tool in a public health threat like the coronavirus. The flaw in the mask strategy comes down to you and me, he says.
“The mask,” he allows, “is complicated. You have to decide when to use them, who should use them, and then try to find out if will you be able to use them properly in a context. I mean, we’re talking about masks in restaurants, and, of course, you cannot eat with a mask on.” And, he pointed to Spain, which has a relatively strict mask rule but where cases have spiked lately.
He adds: “I’m telling people it’s much better to keep a social distance. This is really the best thing you can do in trying to lessen the risk of [infection]—keeping distance. Try to work from home, cycle to work instead of taking the bus if you can. There are plenty of things you should do before you start with a mask [policy].”
Public transport is the mass vector in many countries. The findings in Sweden around schools is also interesting:
In the spring, Sweden opted not to close its daycare centers or schools, and, Tegnell contends, it had little bearing on infection rates. The Public Health Agency compiled the data on its schools-policy decision and shared its results. Sweden reported 1,124 cases of school-aged children contracting COVID-19 in a period spanning from March, when the outbreak began, to the close of the school year in mid-June. That number equals 2.1% of all COVID cases in the country during that period. Of those, 14 had to be hospitalized in an intensive care unit.
Sweden contrasts those numbers with those of Finland.
“Finland kept the schools closed, and we kept them open. And it seems like, at least in our context, it didn’t make a huge difference, neither to the pandemic, nor to the number of children falling ill,” Tegnell told Fortune.
“It seems like children do get infected,” he continued. “They very seldomly get seriously ill, and they don’t seem to spread the infection very much to other parts of the society.”
And it seems that despite the negative news from the rest of the world about Sweden, the Swedes themselves are very happy with the efforts of their government:
Each week, the health agency collects survey data from thousands of Swedes. In it, they asked a big question: How are we doing? The approval rate has been sky high.
“It seems 80% of the people, when asked, ‘Are you following the advice of the agency?’ responded, ‘Yes, we are following the advice of the agency.’ And that’s been consistent all the way through,” he said. “The trust for the agency is high. People continue to follow our advice. I think that’s really important.”
“It’s rather unusual that an agency in Sweden gets flowers from the population—flowers and cards.”
Hardly the response an angry population would give if their government had failed them. The moral of the story is that you shouldn’t believe everything you read about Sweden, nor should you believe supercilious and arrogant ministers like Chris Hipkins.
Our Government seems intent on treating us like children who are too stupid to do what is is best for us. Sweden’s Government treats its citizens like adults. Sweden is far better prepared to deal with the real world, while New Zealand, quivering in fear at the impact of the Chinese plague is ill-equipped for the new reality.
As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news,...
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