[...] The relatively benign political environment in New Zealand is enough to stop most New Zealanders from worrying about their liberty - which is precisely the reason I’m alert to the threat this Government has become.

[...] Current assumptions about COVID-19’s virulence and mortality rate are mostly based on incomplete information. Like many countries, especially in the early phases of the pandemic, Italy did not test widely for the virus. Instead, only the obviously sick were tested.

[...] Worse, the party rushing to profit the most from the COVID-19 panic are the ones responsible for the whole mess: China. Having unleashed the virus on the world with its lies and secrecy, China is now cynically attempting to profit from the rotten fruit of its malfeasance.

IN THESE AMAZING DAYS of “lockdown” and “physical isolation”, I have been mulling over the hazardous concept of the volksgemeinschaft. I say ‘hazardous’ because the term – translated as “people’s community” – is most commonly associated with the Nazi regime.

Now that the Wuhan virus has hit every country in the world and made them all panic, it is becoming obvious that if we keep our countries in an economic lockdown, another Great Depression could take many more lives than the virus has the potential to do.