Watertight border looks sadly vulnerable
So much for the watertight border.
Just last week, health chief Ashley Bloomfield advised the Cabinet that New Zealand was ready to move to alert level 1 because domestic transmission had been vanquished and imported cases were being captured and secured.
But border controls remained critical, given the ongoing global pandemic, so a suite of tougher measures was announced to accompany the move to level 1.
Testing for every overseas arrival on day three and day 12. No leaving managed isolation without a negative test. No compassionate leave for funerals or tangi.
Leave may be granted to see a dying loved one or to grieve a death in a small group, but only if you’ve been in the country for at least a week and have tested negative for Covid-19. The two women whose positive tests have shattered our Covid-free bliss were granted leave, but weren’t eligible. They had been in New Zealand for six days. They had not been tested.
Those rules were put in place on June 9. It is unclear if the Ministry of Health applied them to the women, who arrived in New Zealand on June 7. But it makes no sense to exempt them just because they flew in two days before the rules were announced. It’s not as if they would have tossed out their plans to come to New Zealand if they had known the measures would be put in place.
Public health experts talk about lines of defence, and this was not the only one that failed.
The daily health check for the women while at the Novotel Ellerslie was a mere “are you okay?” rather than a rigorous run-through of all Covid symptoms.
Bloomfield conceded the women may never have been granted leave if they had been asked the right questions, which could have led to the discovery of a sniffle or a sore throat.
The country may be upset at the women for breaking our 24-day
Covid-free streak, but they appear to have done everything right.
It’s not their fault they were granted leave after losing a parent. They drove to Wellington in a private car that didn’t need refuelling. They avoided public facilities. They relieved themselves on the side of the road.
They arrived in Wellington on Saturday night, grieved with one family member, and didn’t contact anyone else until they went to get tested.
But they could have done all kinds of things. Compassionate leave is built on trust.
Just how easily it can be exploited was on display when two Hamilton teenagers ran off after being granted leave last week.
They were eventually found, but
Bloomfield was unable to say how many days it took to find them. If they had been Covid-infected and had contacted dozens of people, Bloomfield’s confidence that a second wave isn’t on the way would not be so solid.
The Government has talked ad nauseam about the need for border controls, and it had little choice but to suspend all compassionate leave for the time being.
It has faced a barrage of criticism, and even High Court action, for its perceived lack of compassion in the face of a global Covid pandemic.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern even buckled to public opinion when she back-tracked on limiting the numbers at a funeral to 10 under alert level 2. But she has remained resolute that the border must be watertight. It has to be.
Once domestic transmission disappears, it’s the only way our virus-free haven can be disturbed.
While it seems that the two new cases and their contacts are contained for now, our lines of defence failed. That is an embarrassment to the Government and health officials.
Ardern is understood to be disappointed, but given what’s at stake if a second wave hits, she has every right to be livid.
The Government has talked ad nauseam about the need for border controls, and it had little choice but to suspend all compassionate leave for the time being.