We Need a Ministry of COVID

I don’t buy the reason we are given for the introduction of the ‘Lectern of Lies’. Luke Malpass (14/10/21) has it that it was to put all media on an equal footing, to allow everyone the same information at the same time. Isn’t that what press releases are for? This is not a media equality issue. The format was used because, quite simply, it was and still is beneficial for Jacinda Ardern and her image. 

It goes back to the immediate politicisation of Covid-19. Covid was a God-given opportunity for Jacinda and her government to be at the forefront of the nation’s consciousness, day in and day out. Many of us have been unable to watch the 1pm parody for its excruciating awfulness. We chose not to bear witness to the daily physical jerks of the PM, and the tugging of the forelock of her side-kick ‘Dr Gloomfield’ or the childish Chris Hipkins. The amusement of the Deputy PM didn’t amuse the rest of us and neither did the incredibly distracting and surely unnecessary gesticulations of the ASL signer/s. I know that subtitles are available. Deaf people can read. 

The decision to make Covid a political issue was a massive coup for Labour. They couldn’t have planned it better from a political point of view. 

A valuable and professional way through the pandemic would have been to set up, immediately, a special task force: a group of specialists covering each aspect of the different and predictable scenarios. A non-partisan collective. A group taking advice from all sources and making calls on the best possible outcomes.

Instead, Jacinda took immediate control for herself and her lickspittles to power-grab and use the tricky virus as an ongoing election campaign. Every day she electioneers. Hell, she won the last election on the statement that this was a Covid election. She offered nothing else. The rest was of course hidden, ready to be unleashed with no opposition on a compliant and unsuspecting public.

She had no mandate to do what she did, as the policies were never revealed to the voting public before the election. Voters, scared silly by Covid, unwittingly handed her a majority, gifting her the power to do whatever she wanted without having to negotiate with a coalition handbrake.

She has used her absolute power to push through (mostly under urgency) the most unpalatable legislation I have ever seen. Inflicted on a shell-shocked, covid weary population. 

People I know are becoming increasingly distraught. They are becoming distressed and depressed. They call for a way out but there is no way out. No legal or constitutional remedy. A general election is all that is possible. The country will remain hostage for another two long, difficult, tax-grabbing years, with Covid and Jacinda still centre-stage.

Jacinda will continue to plunder the situation for all she can. And when her popularity takes a dip her loyal MSM buddies will be on hand to take another smiley pic and write flowery guff about her upcoming nuptials. It is a certainty that there will not be a lockdown on or around her wedding. 

A proper Ministry of Covid, call it what you will, would have given us a dedicated and professional way through. They could have covered all important areas that make up a fully functioning country: the economy, business, the health system, tourism, agriculture – you get my drift. A balanced scorecard approach to the problem.

Instead, we have a chaotic, uncoordinated, ever-changing catastrophe. A slo-mo car crash. We have so-called experts popping up like whack-a-mole. We have a fan club and classy mugs for the gloomy Ashley.

The sun has shone a little less brightly in the last weeks on the screaming pink locks of Siouxsie, but I have no doubt that she will be back, freshly pinked and still unrepentant.

Different so-called ‘modellers’ come up with varying numbers of corpses we will have to step over as we line up for our meagre supermarket rations. This morbid fantasy didn’t happen pre-Delta, and it won’t happen with Delta. Once the caprices of spring settle down and we move into summer, we can look forward to getting Vitamin D from its source, having a swim and enjoying a picnic with other people. Can’t we? In our dreams, maybe. The lockdowns continue. There is still no plan. We sit and wait.