Requests by National party members of the Epidemic Response Committee and esteemed epidemiologist Sir David Skegg to fully quarantine all people coming into our country were met with a lukewarm response by top government officials being questioned on Tuesday.
The rationale behind the question was if the country is suffering in a potential 50 billion dollar shut down with the population in lockdown, don’t they have the right to expect authorities to take similar extreme measures to stop this virus coming into our country?
When it is clear the virus overwhelmingly comes from people arriving back from overseas and crucially, we now know people can be infected and show no symptoms, like British actor Idris Elba, who tested positive.
“It’s a high trust environment’, says Mr Bloomfield defending the current status quo of some self-isolating of returning kiwis. But when life or death is at stake, people must be forced to do the right thing; it cannot be left to chance.
Other responses from Bloomfield and David Clark included ‘balance between control and people’s freedoms’ and the inevitable ‘human rights and privacy’ concerns.
At a time when New Zealand is in the grip of a deadly virus, our rights take a back seat.
Survival is top of mind, not human rights. We lose our rights to a large degree when a government lockdown comes into play giving the government agencies greater powers.
However anecdotal evidence suggests the expression ‘civil emergency’ and ‘government lockdown’ can take on a very different meaning. For example, the police can stop and forensically question a family innocently driving to a park for a walk; whilst ignoring a Maori group, using vigilante tactics carrying out roadblocks to prevent traffic getting into their area. (And clearly not observing social isolation.)
Hone Harawira informed us on Tuesday “‘We’ (his group) are now at alert level 5”. How quaint. But actually chilling, given he is making a mockery of the government’s serious lockdown order which the majority of us are observing.
“The lockdown is a bold move but not enough”, says Sir David Skegg, the star of the show on Tuesday. His commentary was refreshingly devoid of political correctness, harshly criticising the government for lack of a clear strategy, inadequate testing and urgent need for rapid contact tracing, amongst other concerns.
But will this be taken up by the media for further discussion or ignored as too harsh and critical of the PM who is doing a marvellous job during this frustrating time?
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