Impatience in the waiting room
Having only just emerged from the fullscale lockdown of level 4 into the ‘‘waiting room’’ of level 3, is New Zealand impatient to head straight for the even more relaxed environment of level 2? Describing our current alert setting as a waiting room, as the prime minister often has, may be part of the issue. No-one wants to linger long in the intermediate zone. But the same impatience could cause new problems.
Two days without any new cases or any deaths, followed by a more level 4-like picture of two new cases and one death, along with conversations about opening up travel with Australia, may have lulled some of us into a sense that this health crisis is over. That can produce a very unsettling effect when you compare the relatively healthy state of New Zealand with startling death tolls in the US, Italy and the UK.
A confrontation between National leader Simon Bridges and Dr Ashley Bloomfield, the director-general of health, at the Epidemic Response Select Committee on Wednesday, was a perfect illustration of caution clashing with impatience, albeit with political overtones.
It is clearly important to National that, rather than going hard and going early, as the official narrative has it, the Government be seen to have gone both too late and too hard. It might seem paradoxical, but the Government should have locked us down more decisively while also allowing more economic activity to occur.
Bridges’ questions to Bloomfield focused on the necessity of staying in the waiting room rather than opening the door to level 2. Every day at level 3, Bridges said, ‘‘means a thousand more people on the dole and small businesses that wind up’’. He even seemed sceptical about the widely accepted science behind a 14-day incubation period for Covid-19, a timeframe cited throughout the crisis, including by the World Health Organisation.
ACT leader David Seymour had a better understanding of the way infection periods interact with alert levels and recognised that we are likely to learn by the end of this week if the more relaxed level 3 has produced a new batch of cases. As the prime minister will make a decision on level 2 after the weekend, that means the timing is about right.
Like Seymour, National MP Michael Woodhouse also asked questions in an informed and respectful manner. A line of questioning about the human cost of putting off non-Covid treatments and screenings was useful, and capitalised on harrowing stories presented to the committee, including the account of a woman who was forbidden from having her partner present during a traumatic birth under level 4 restrictions.
Woodhouse’s approach contrasted greatly with that of his leader, who went on to accuse Bloomfield of using a well-paid army of communications professionals to hide information from the public and ‘‘control the information flow’’ in a way that suits the Government.
It was a surprisingly blunt and graceless attack on a public servant by a politician who hopes to be prime minister in a little over four months. Bridges appeared almost petulant. Those who believe that his presentation of the message often gets in the way of the content would have had a field day.
As with his criticisms of the Government that produced such an unexpected backlash on Facebook last month, there is every chance that Bridges’ attack inflicted more political damage on himself than his intended target.
It was a surprisingly blunt and graceless attack on a public servant by a politician.