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David Theobald
I am over the lockdown. As I have said before, on a selfish, personal basis it doesn’t affect me that much; I can put up with it. I am retired, live in the country, can weather the (hopefully) temporary hit any investments have taken and can still go for my thrice weekly long fast walk in the country.
But I sit here waiting for the gummint to tell me not only when I can play golf, but how I can play it. Really? A first world problem, to be sure, but it is symptomatic of how we have just sat back and allowed the government to pretty much take over our lives.
I am not going to bag all the central decisions thus far. Some of them, yes, and the timing of others, certainly. The border closure was slow to be brought in and anaemic in nature initially; this has improved. Four weeks ago some sort of ‘lockdown’ appeared, even to me, to have some merit. That it was instituted with some rough edges on the detail front was in some way secondary to the haste that it had to be started. We can discuss why there wasn’t a better-prepared plan ready to go, that can, and should, be discussed later.
But things have changed rapidly over the last month. The health situation changes, literally, daily. We cleared beds in hospitals wholesale to cope with the expected tsunami of coronavirus patients. Four weeks ago that looked sensible. There are currently eight (I think) Covid inpatients in the whole country. Keeping beds cleared now looks daft and should be revised. The elective work that was put off needs to be restarted – like about a fortnight ago.
And this is a simple example of a problem we now face. The people that appear to be making the decisions that shape our day to day lives are totally inflexible. “We will make a decision where we go next on May 11th” – and that’s it, ears closed.
Why can’t we have a decision-making process that can change as proper data (as opposed to damned mathematical models) comes in? Unfortunately, my limited experience in interfacing with government departments tells me that this is not how the body bureaucratic in Wellington works. The great civil service blob is virtually immune to change – in structure or new ideas.
I cannot be convinced that two weeks at ‘Level 3’ (and I would not be surprised if it has already been decided that this will be four weeks) is necessary. I need no convincing that the medium and long term effects will be terribly damaging; and that damage will increase, as exponentially as the number of clinical virus cases didn’t, as each day passes.
Do nothing and go back to the New Zealand world of late February? Of course not. Border controls as of now, good. Increased protection of the elderly along sensible but non-compulsory lines, good. Contact tracing at a level we have never seen before, good. Extra, draconian health and safety requirements when businesses reopen, bad. But apart from that, can we please get back to running the country as a viable economic concern and can we start, oooh let me see, now?
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