Alex Davis
theemperorsrobes.blogspot.com
After ten days of no new COVID-19 cases many New Zealanders are likely to be feeling a mixture of relief and complacency. The country dodged a bullet – now there is just the journey back to normality.
However for those prepared to look honestly at the challenges facing New Zealand a return to normality is neither simple nor guaranteed. In fact, there are strong arguments that New Zealand’s much triumphed “eradication” may have instead painted the country into corner.
At this point in time two likely futures radiate out in front of New Zealand and neither is pretty. There are others of course, mostly involving heroic suspensions of reality by academics such as Michael Lee who prove just how far removed from reality our tertiary institutions have become. Instead let’s focus on the two most probable.
Future 1: COVID-19 is not eliminated and breaks out or returns
New Zealand’s drastic seven week lock down at levels 3 and 4 was effective in the same way that burning down your house to eliminate bed bugs is – it worked but it generated catastrophic collateral damage. It has led directly to the largest and most rapid increase in joblessness in New Zealand’s history, which will have unintended consequences we will be dealing with for years.
However, the real problem is that despite the run of zero cases it is likely COVID-19 is still in New Zealand. We know that overall 97% of infected persons are either asymptomatic or develop only very mild symptoms. This means it is likely there are New Zealanders who still have COVID-19 who don’t know it and as restrictions ease they will begin to re-establish chains of infection. Professor Sir David Skegg of Otago University warned of exactly this possibility just days ago. New Zealand’s poor contract tracing capability means any outbreak is likely to be difficult to contain without re-imposing the draconian level 3 and 4 style lock down we recently emerged from.
The problem with re-imposing a lockdown is two-fold:
Firstly, the March 24 lock down was enabled at least in part by mass panic induced by hysterical media reporting. In the absence of solid data, the media breathlessly reported mortality rates that were vastly over inflated. What we know now 10 weeks later, is that even the US Centre for Disease Control admits that the mortality rate for covid19 is 0.26%. This is approximately the same as the flu, 10 times less than the WHO’s estimates and 100 times less than early (now clearly inaccurate) reports from China, Iran and Italy.
The CDC estimates the death rate from COVID-19 for those under 50 years old is 1 in 6,725 and almost all those who die have comorbidities or underlying conditions. Those without morbidities are more likely to die in a car accident and schoolchildren are more likely to die being struck by lightning than COVID-19. This didn’t stop hysterical responses from teachers and parents alike throughout the country when schools returned a few weeks ago.
Secondly, What we also now know which we didn’t on March 24 is just how catastrophic the economic damage will be. New Zealand’s unemployment is on track to more than double to 10%, over 1,000 jobs are being lost per day. Government debt is expected to balloon to $200 billion by 2024, more than NZ$40,000 for every man, woman and child in New Zealand. The economic damage to New Zealand of just seven weeks of lock down were enormous and will be felt for generations to come.
Now that New Zealanders know that COVID-19 is extremely unlikely to kill them but is extremely likely to cause severe economic damage, their willingness to be stampeded back into home detention is far from certain. What all but the most arrogant or ignorant governments recognise is that they rule with the consent of the governed and even Jacinda Ardern’s honeyed words are unlikely to convince New Zealanders to ask for or acquiesce to lockdown v2.0.
What this means is that if there is an internally generated second wave of infection in New Zealand it may well simply spread because a) our contact tracing capacity is extremely poor and 2) no one is prepared to sacrifice their future for what increasing numbers of people correctly recognise is an illusory threat. In which case COVID-19 will rip through New Zealand, do little damage to the vast majority of the population but will tragically end the lives of a very small number of almost universally already very sick, old people.
If that is the case it begs the obvious question: what was the point of lock down in the first place? All the jobs lost, the billions of dollars spent, the medical operations delayed and the plans destroyed – all for ending up in the same place?
When New Zealanders realise they were misled they are likely to be very unhappy. This is why the politicians want this issue kicked as far down the road as possible and why every effort is being made by the Legacy mainstream media to focus on meaningless death counts and distract from any empirical based reporting that actually reveals the truth: that bluntly, COVID-19 (as even the CDC now admits) is not particularly lethal.
The bad news is that this is the good news future. Which bring us to the second (and worse) potential future…
To be continued: Part Two will publish later this morning
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