I won a wager yesterday. I had a bet with a friend that the number of new Covid-19 cases in New Zealand would increase from the low of 29 the day before (we had 44 new cases yesterday). These things never plot smooth curves and it was inevitable that there would be some ups and down within the overall trend. However, I remain confident that New Zealand has largely got the spread of this virus under control [update: we are back down to just 29 new cases today], which begs the question, where to from here?
The prime minister appears to have no idea. Jacinda Ardern, at her press conference yesterday, said she will let businesses know the requirements for reopening two days before the Level 4 alert is lifted on 22nd April. It is obvious that Ardern has no experience running a business, because if she had, she would know that many businesses require more than two days to get up and running again - to schedule staff, reorder supplies, restart equipment, confirm orders with customers, arrange deliveries, etc. Not letting businesses know what they will and will not be allowed to do until two days before the lockdown ends adds more uncertainty to already difficult circumstances. The government came up with the impressive-sounding alert levels before we went into lockdown but it is apparent that they still have not developed the detail of what each level means.
The incompetence of this government has been revealed, as if there was any doubt prior, in its confused handling of the pandemic to date. Yesterday the prime minister announced that all international arrivals would be quarantined. Talk about shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted! Why didn't she do this a month ago, or at least at the beginning of the lockdown, rather than now when we've almost contained the virus within the country? It is obviously a knee-jerk reaction to the calls for a border quarantine from the leader of the opposition, Simon Bridges, and his launch of a petition to that effect. It has the appearance of policy-making on the fly and demonstrates a complete lack of forethought.
It is clear that this government does not have, and has never had, a strategy for dealing with Covid-19. It didn't have any objectives for the lockdown (other than the very vague "eliminate") and it appears to have no fixed criteria for how we come out of it. Priorities become obvious when you have a clear strategy and objectives. If the objective was, for example, to keep Covid-19 out of New Zealand, then the first thing you would do is quarantine at the border. The biggest problem of not having a strategy is you don't know whether you're succeeding or failing, and you don't know what to do next. That is why the prime minister is deferring the detail of next stage until it is almost too late - she simply doesn't know. And if you are serious about your strategy you don't prioritise unimportant objectives like vaping regulation in the middle of a pandemic - they simply distract from your primary goal.
The best thing the government can now do is get the hell out of the way. The end of the lockdown provides an opportunity for Jacinda Ardern and her colleagues to pat themselves on the back and say to New Zealanders, "Over to you, now." Let us all get back to our jobs, studies and social lives, and let businesses and other organisations determine how they operate safely, given the relatively modest risks that remain. The authorities should focus on what they should've been focusing on back in February, which is keeping infections out of New Zealand, and tracking and isolating the few cases left within our borders. But I fear our socialist-nationalist-environmentalist government will find that course of action about as appealing as a child sitting on the sidelines of a busy playground.
The prime minister appears to have no idea. Jacinda Ardern, at her press conference yesterday, said she will let businesses know the requirements for reopening two days before the Level 4 alert is lifted on 22nd April. It is obvious that Ardern has no experience running a business, because if she had, she would know that many businesses require more than two days to get up and running again - to schedule staff, reorder supplies, restart equipment, confirm orders with customers, arrange deliveries, etc. Not letting businesses know what they will and will not be allowed to do until two days before the lockdown ends adds more uncertainty to already difficult circumstances. The government came up with the impressive-sounding alert levels before we went into lockdown but it is apparent that they still have not developed the detail of what each level means.
The incompetence of this government has been revealed, as if there was any doubt prior, in its confused handling of the pandemic to date. Yesterday the prime minister announced that all international arrivals would be quarantined. Talk about shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted! Why didn't she do this a month ago, or at least at the beginning of the lockdown, rather than now when we've almost contained the virus within the country? It is obviously a knee-jerk reaction to the calls for a border quarantine from the leader of the opposition, Simon Bridges, and his launch of a petition to that effect. It has the appearance of policy-making on the fly and demonstrates a complete lack of forethought.
It is clear that this government does not have, and has never had, a strategy for dealing with Covid-19. It didn't have any objectives for the lockdown (other than the very vague "eliminate") and it appears to have no fixed criteria for how we come out of it. Priorities become obvious when you have a clear strategy and objectives. If the objective was, for example, to keep Covid-19 out of New Zealand, then the first thing you would do is quarantine at the border. The biggest problem of not having a strategy is you don't know whether you're succeeding or failing, and you don't know what to do next. That is why the prime minister is deferring the detail of next stage until it is almost too late - she simply doesn't know. And if you are serious about your strategy you don't prioritise unimportant objectives like vaping regulation in the middle of a pandemic - they simply distract from your primary goal.
The best thing the government can now do is get the hell out of the way. The end of the lockdown provides an opportunity for Jacinda Ardern and her colleagues to pat themselves on the back and say to New Zealanders, "Over to you, now." Let us all get back to our jobs, studies and social lives, and let businesses and other organisations determine how they operate safely, given the relatively modest risks that remain. The authorities should focus on what they should've been focusing on back in February, which is keeping infections out of New Zealand, and tracking and isolating the few cases left within our borders. But I fear our socialist-nationalist-environmentalist government will find that course of action about as appealing as a child sitting on the sidelines of a busy playground.
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