I suppose credit must be begrudgingly given where it is due. Despite slow and casual initial response, the constant systemic border bungles and a reliance on geographic fortune, the Labour Government has ensured New Zealand continues to weather the COVID-19 pandemic better than any other first world country.
The Government has borrowed more money than any other Government in New Zealand history. It has achieved 50% of the party vote implementing an economic policy one would find in the 0.1% supported Democrats for Social Credit manifesto. It would attempt economic recovery resurrecting the corpse of Sir Robert Muldoon, were there a shred of competence in the cabinet; however, life goes on in New Zealand much as it did before the virus escaped a CCP lab, in contrast to the rest of the world.
New Zealanders have been bloody slack about scanning QR codes everywhere they go. Unfortunately it is due to an attitude of laziness rather than ideological stubbornness, but that is still a small win for freedom in my book. I’m yet to download the app, despite recently accepting there are sufficient privacy safeguards in place (though I also ignore the motorway onramp lights that permit one car per green light).
I’m disappointed in the position taken by ACT in regards to contact tracing. David Seymour argues that signing in should be made compulsory: a small reduction in freedom now to avoid experiencing a larger arbitrary loss of freedom in future potential lockdowns. I’d argue against the power of the government to implement lockdowns by diktat. Seymour knows better than to grant the government more powers for a perceived increase in freedom, though he also knows the government holds an unassailable political advantage on this issue; it compensates for the decline to excrement that has resulted from everything else Labour touches.
It was inevitable Covid-19 would reappear in the community given the aggressiveness on the new South African and UK strains of the virus. Knowledge of the devastation these strains have wreaked upon the rest of the world and the success of the new vaccines being distributed in response doesn’t appear to have led to tighter controls in our MIQ hotels, nor any desire to accelerate the distribution of the vaccine in New Zealand. Our geographic advantages keep Labour in casual cruise control, despite previous scares caused by elementary mistakes in the isolation of overseas arrivals.
The mixing of occupants beginning and nearing the end of their quarantine does not appear to have been adequately dealt with. All three cases picked up in the community tested negative prior to leaving MIQ, yet the subsequent positive tests indicate they may have been infected with the virus, incubating while in MIQ.
News that the Pullman Hotel is now being cleared of all those in isolation, due to the three community cases being linked to the hotel, doesn’t fill me with optimism. It fills me with dread, wracked by doubt in the ability of authorities to transfer several hundred potentially infected persons without spreading the virus further. I imagine simple precautions such as moving groups based on the time they first entered Pullman Hotel won’t be achieved, though the hotel is probably so riddled with the virus that anybody inside now faces an extra 14 days in isolation.
The other question I have for the Government is why can’t you distribute the vaccine rapidly like other countries around the world are doing? New Zealanders generally, correctly, treat the anti-vax movement with the same ridicule faced by flat-earthers but make an exception when it comes to the Covid vaccine. Labour is so unjustifiably confident in its own abilities that it thinks New Zealand can safely drag its feet over authorising the distribution of the vaccine. Given the opportunity, I’ll happily take it tomorrow.
As of writing, there is no evidence of community transmission (when someone who isn’t linked to an MIQ facility is infected). The minister in charge of the Covid Response, Chris Hipkins, says the cabinet will not consider lifting lockdown alert levels until there is evidence of community transmission. I’m not going to make a prediction either way but I hope the government will finally take this seriously enough to shift gears on rolling out the Covid vaccine.