When I lived in New Zealand the impression I had of the worldwide Covid pandemic in comparison to New Zealand was one of total and utter chaos in which regular living had become impossible amongst a decimation of the population. Having lived in Australia for nine months, amongst the Omicron outbreak in which the country is averaging more than 100,000 cases a day, I’ve realised that Covid isn’t having the disastrous impact I was misled into believing while resident in New Zealand.
Watching the Labour Government of New Zealand fumble its way into responding to the community outbreaks of Omicron, I see them making the same mistakes Victoria made while dealing with the less transmissible though supposedly more dangerous Covid variants before. Not only does Labour appear determined to ignore the lessons of over-reaction to Covid but they’re even planning to create new errors of their own.
Rapid Antigen Testing kits (RATs) are almost impossible to obtain from private providers in Australia. Technically, they’re freely available to anyone who wishes to purchase them but supply simply cannot keep up with demand. The New Zealand government must have known that community transmission of Omicron is inevitable but there is little evidence that they have tried to prepare for it with the provision of RATs. Until the Omicron outbreaks, RATs were only available via specific government authorised testing programs.
Now that the slow kid in the class has started to catch up to the Omicron strategies of the rest of the world, RATs can be imported. However, the government is taking the outrageous step of effectively nationalising the orders of private businesses, as Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield has instructed all potential suppliers that the government has priority over anyone else for the first 80 million RATs imported. Bloomfield denies “commandeering all the stocks that private businesses have”, saying only those tests not already in the country have been consolidated. “We have discussed with our three main suppliers, which are Abbott, Roche and Siemens that forward orders of tests that haven’t yet arrived in the country, that those be consolidated into the government’s stock”. Considering Australia has approved 67 different RATs for import and use, the fact that New Zealand is dependent on just three suppliers is cause for concern.
Bloomfield has also stated that there were “processes in place to supply businesses with tests if they are using them at the moment, and that will continue”. Only the government could think that businesses who have lost their orders to the government will experience no interruption in availability as they wait for the government to provide them with the same tests.
Despite even the CCP-aligned World Health Organisation now recommending against travel bans in the wake of the global Omicron outbreak, New Zealand’s government continues to shut themselves and New Zealand citizens off from the rest of the world, while creating uncertainty over when that situation will change. The WHO website states in relation to international travel:
“Lift or ease international travel bans as they do not provide added value and continue to contribute to the economic and social stress experienced by States Parties. The failure of travel restrictions introduced after the detection and reporting of the Omicron variant to limit international spread of Omicron demonstrates the ineffectiveness of such measures over time. Blanket bans will not prevent international spread and they place a heavy burden on lives and livelihoods.”
New Zealand’s Government refuses to loosen any restrictions on entering the country, even for New Zealand citizens. On the contrary, the previously scheduled two MIQ lotteries have been arbitrarily cancelled, with little notice, on the Ministry of Health website and Twitter. Placing numerous hoops to jump through to return to New Zealand is economically destructive in itself; when those hoops are constantly moved and there is no certainty in the process, that is catastrophic.
The rules imposed on those who catch Omicron or who are exposed to Omicron are surprisingly extreme given the rest of the world is reducing isolation periods and the rules surrounding who must isolate and for how long. At the start of this year, Greece reduced isolation periods for those infected in half from ten to five days. Spain, Ireland and the UK dropped their isolation periods to seven days over Christmas, while one of the most devastated nations during the initial pandemic in 2020, Italy, has scrapped quarantine for close contacts who are vaccinated. Even the Centre for Disease Control in the USA recommends five days, pointing to data that shows Omicron is most transmissible two days before symptoms begin and up to three days after that.
New Zealand has chosen the completely opposite approach, extending the minimum stay in MIQ from seven to ten days. Even worse, if you test positive for Omicron, you must isolate at home for fourteen days while everyone else living with you must isolate for an additional ten days. Given the financial devastation a positive test result will impose upon those who haven’t even tested positive, there is now a serious incentive to not get tested due to the financial devastation a positive result will cause others: far worse than the impact of Omicron itself.
Economic devastation will be the ultimate result of Labour’s Covid 19 approach. New Zealand’s average number of daily new Covid infections has never exceeded 200. There have been 15,745 cases recorded since March 2020 and a mere 52 deaths (0.33%) as a result, all prior to the arrival of the milder Omicron variant. The government’s response has resulted in the country taking on nearly $100 billion in public debt, equivalent to 33% of the entire economy and the highest percentage since the late 1990s. Treasury expects debt to reach $150 billion by 2025 which represents 47% of the entire economy, though this figure was released prior to Omicron.
The high level of government borrowing and spending is having a direct impact on the increasing cost of living in the country, far in excess of wage growth. Inflation was recorded as being 4.9% year-on-year in the September quarter, up from 4.6% the previous quarter. While this is lower than the UK’s 5.4% and the USA’s 7%, it is higher than neighbouring Australia’s 3.5% and the global average of 3.18%. Given that New Zealand’s isolation means it is able to watch the impact of Covid policy on the rest of the world before each variant arrives and feel the economic impact of each variant last, current inflation numbers suggest that not only is Finance Minister Grant Robertson incapable of learning from the experience of others but 4.9% is only an indication of worse to come.
Prices on staple foods at the supermarket are increasing, with the price of groceries increasing by 4.5% last December compared with the same time in 2020. Fuel prices averaged $2.66 per litre in December 2021 with industry commentators expecting prices to exceed $3 a litre in 2022. Despite speculation for several months that housing prices are expected to be impacted by this economic malaise, in December every region in the country with the exception of Southland experienced record house price highs, averaging $966,000 nationally.
The negative effect of Covid on New Zealanders is clearly being exacerbated and exceeded by the response of the Labour Government, which is borrowing more, spending more and printing more money than any time since the 1975-1984 Muldoon government. While supporters of Jacinda Ardern point to the relatively low numbers of Covid cases and deaths in New Zealand as a sign of a competent government response, they’re completely ignorant of just how much better off New Zealand could have been had it not been shut off from the rest of the world.