Good morning fellow lock-downers, and lock-uppers.
All hail the Prime Minister, your single source of truth, who can do no wrong.
Saturday morning it was revealed that Ms Ardern, “Esteemed Leader of the Nation and Fisherman’s Friend”, was shocked. Some of you would but wish that was true, not in a nice way but let’s not go there, let’s be kind.
She was shocked into ‘going hard and going early’ by the anecdotal evidence of her overseas friends “saying. Go, just shut down, because I am here in lockdown with thousands of people dying. Just shut down.”
That came as a shock to me, I can assure you. I had dreamed, silly me, that the lady would be moved by scientific evidence and best advice, not hyperbolic anecdotes from face-maties. Now I understand how some opportunities were missed.
For example, when, on March 6th, she was presented with “Rationale for Border Control Interventions and Options to Prevent or Delay the Arrival of COVID-19 in New Zealand” a document prepared by top Health Ministry advisors, she clearly didn’t have face-book anecdotal evidence saying “Just shut down”, because if she did she would have acted on the document which presented just two options for consideration, inventively named Option 1, and Option 2.
The advisors clearly expressed a preference:
“from a public health perspective Option 1 is preferable given the potential benefits listed in Table 1 and the potentially severe health impacts of Covid-19 in NZ.”
Which she duly ignored.
“Option 1: Continue with existing border controls but adapt these to all countries with evidence of uncontrolled spread of Covid-19, along with preparing for a full set of major control measures.
Option 2: Switch from travel restrictions to expanding self-quarantine in NZ for relevant incoming travellers and preparing for a full set of major control measures.
Further, reflecting the ominous gravity of possible negatives for the entire country the document advised:
Selection of the best of these two options for New Zealand as a whole, should not be entirely a health sector decision. It should require a full societal perspective (eg, as held by the Prime Minister and Cabinet – potentially with input from all Ministers). There is a potential case for involving all the key leaders of all political parties so that there is multi-party support for the final decision. This is an approach NZ has previously taken with war-time cross-party Cabinets (eg, in the First World War). Indeed, this approach may be particularly important for NZ since 2020 is an election year and the need to avoid partisan point-scoring is particularly high.
Which she also duly ignored.
Now I understand how the opportunity to minimise risk, not just health risk, but risk of accusations of politicising the pandemic was missed. If only those health experts had advised her instead to seek an opinion from flop-book banshees, the country may have been better off.
Opportunity missed. What a shame, a crying shame.
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