Test of love
Why the PM needs vaccine progress
It’s nearly a year since New Zealand’s first Covid case was confirmed, on February 28, 2020. It was announced by the Ministry of Health, which seemed reassuringly certain that there was no need to panic. The chances of community outbreak were low, it told us, and it was confident the public risk was being well managed ‘‘because of the public messaging, awareness of Covid-19 disease and our public health response to managing cases and contacts’’.
Five days later, a second case was detected. The following day another. Then another. Probably, in fact, there were many more cases in the community than were ever confirmed before New Zealand went into a hard lockdown on March 25. We all know people who turned up for a test at that time with Covid-like symptoms but were sent home because they hadn’t been overseas, or hadn’t been in contact with anyone who had been travelling. There were mixed messages about who should get tested, and confusing contradictions between what we were being told at the daily press conference with Jacinda Ardern and Ashley Bloomfield, and what was happening on the ground.
We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that New Zealand was hardly alone in that respect; this pandemic moved swiftly, marching across the globe with frightening speed.
Every country in the world has been playing catch-up since day one. And we’ve done better than most at staying one step ahead. But we have been far from perfect in our response, as Eugene Bingham’s investigation this week makes clear.
We were slow to adapt to new information about masks, for instance, the Ministry of Health remaining stubbornly wedded to the idea that they did more harm than good, long after the experts told them different.
As Bingham notes, we were also sluggish to start testing all new arrivals in managed isolation; that didn’t happen until June 9, some two months after the managed isolation system was set up.
That means we probably had cases of Covid in the country, even while we were celebrating New Zealand being Covid-free.
Bingham’s investigation raises important questions about whether we are ready for an outbreak of newer, more virulent – and potentially more deadly – strains of Covid, a possibility that looks more likely given the numbers turning up at the border with these variants.
Those questions deserve to get a hearing; let’s just hope that happens.
Sadly, as we’ve seen all too often, there has been a tendency to shout down anyone who questions New Zealand’s response. We’ve shown remarkable intolerance for anyone puncturing our smug little bubble as one of the few places in the world where life carries on almost as normal.
The truth is that since the March lockdown, we’ve relied on the borders to do most of the heavy lifting for us, virtually shutting them down to all but a trickle of returning expats.
But our luck may not last forever. That’s why it’s so necessary we cast a critical eye over every aspect of New Zealand’s response now, while we’ve still got breathing space to do so.
Because if and when the next outbreak happens, we might not be able to outrun it again.
Sadly, there has been a tendency to shout down anyone who questions New Zealand’s response.