5 big things we need to go our way
One economist says we need an adult in the room. Another says we should forget about helping business and just focus on health. But really, how are we going to survive this? Here are five big things that have to go our way.
1. Better health measures
We are not yet doing enough to suppress the virus. Professor Sir David Skegg told Parliament’s Epidemic Response Committee this week the lockdown gives us valuable time to get it right. But, he warned, “every day counts”.
If we don’t upscale our response on the health front, he said, shutdowns will paralyse society for a year or 18 months. What do we need?
● Stricter PPE rules: Import and production of personal protective equipment (PPE) has been ramped up, but the latest from Health Minister David Clark is only that PPE will be made available to all frontline staff who wanted it.
What? Frontline staff are our heroes and we don’t want them getting sick, or passing on the infection to the rest of us. PPE use should be mandated, especially in supermarkets, which we should regard as incubators.
● Stricter isolation: The police must keep telling people to go home and we must do it. We are not putting ourselves through all this only to discover it was pointless because the rules weren’t enforced properly.
● More ventilators: Covid-19 is a respiratory disease. The key to keeping the seriously ill alive is for them to be able to breathe; that’s what ventilators are for.
New Zealand has fewer ventilators per 100,000 people than almost any developed country. Why aren’t appropriate companies retooling to build them right now, perhaps using
3D technology?
Along with ventilators, we need more ICU beds.
● Widespread testing: Since Skegg’s challenge, the Government has ramped up the capacity and relaxed the rules so more people are being tested. Although capacity is now 3000 a day, we’re still not doing that many. Why not? Is it logistics or internal conflict over the goal?
● Better track and trace: If you test, you can track potential carriers, and trace others who come into contact with them. It’s a key to effective isolation and we’re late to it.
On Thursday, the Prime Minister and Police Commissioner contradicted each other about how much tracking is being done.
Smartphone technology should be used to track all arrivals and all people tested.
● Quarantine: If we can’t track and trace comprehensively, all new arrivals should be quarantined.
“Every day counts,” said Skegg on Tuesday. That was four days ago.
2. Good survival programmes
During this phase, suppression and survival, we have to ensure the wellbeing of the most vulnerable among us, ensure companies and their staff can get through financially, and prevent the economy from such destruction that it cannot recover.
● Protecting the vulnerable: This means funding effective protocols for contact, more volunteer support and good communications networks.
The elderly, the disabled, people who are ill through all manner of other causes, people in poverty, those at risk of domestic violence, those who are too isolated. Everyone else finding the stress too much — these numbers will grow.
If you think you can help, call any service agency or volunteer group and ask what you can do.
● Business and employment support: Most companies have lost the market for their goods and services, so they’ve had to stop trading.
Billions of dollars have been allocated by the Government, and kinks in the system are being ironed out. The goal is to keep local businesses and their workers treading water, so broad economic life can begin again when possible. That’s the right goal.
For the larger corporates, it’s far from clear what the best solutions are. Many have deep pockets, but that doesn’t mean they won’t just walk away. The Government’s task, at least for now, is to prevent that.
● Home finance support: When will the banks get on the front foot about mortgage holidays?
It’s not in their interests to have tens of thousands of mortgage sales, so let’s hear it.
And where mortgage holders go, tenants should be able to follow. No one should lose their home at this time and the Government needs regulations to assure us on that.
3. A future-focused recovery
We’re not going back to the way we were. Has everyone got that? There’s good and bad news in that.
There will be business failures, especially among those that rely on imports, exports or tourism. That’s most businesses. If we get this right, we will recover more quickly than most other countries, so it will be some time before they’re in a fit state to trade at volume with us.
Local recovery, therefore, holds potential for the revival of local manufacturing. The key to success, as with ventilators, could be 3D printing. Let’s make electric cars.
Economic management will have to send us back towards a viable mixed economy. Government support for companies to learn all over how to stand on their own two feet, and for some sectors that may need to become “protected”.
● Good infrastructure: A crisis is an opportunity; the Government will commission a lot of new infrastructure.
Sadly, Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones says we should set aside pesky regulations and Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford has called for “shovel-ready” projects. Those things are code for forgetting about the environment and building more roads. The ministers, both of them, should be ashamed.
What hope, if we pitch ourselves backwards into the 20th century? If we lever ourselves out of this crisis only to fall headlong into the catastrophes of climate change?
The measure of the Government’s grasp of this will be if it commits to fully electrifying the main trunk line.
Getting people back to work in cities, and back to shopping, allows us to reinvent the way those cities work, with vastly better public transport, far more cycle lanes, more room on the streets for pedestrians. What role will shops have after we’ve been doing so much online shopping?
And isn’t this the chance to build seawalls against rising sea levels?
● More than infrastructure: What about the Ten Thousand Projects, aimed at improving community facilities? From park benches to community halls, better bus stops to shared inner-city vegetable gardens, there’s so much to do.
A big arts programme, so that, as we return to the new normal, the streets become alive with performers, murals and more. More training and funding for people to become first responders: in the fire and ambulance services, as lifeguards at the beach. Could we instil a deeper commitment to voluntary work, right through society? We could call it the Kindness Project.
● Workers’ rights: Whatever we build and however we build it, people should be paid well. Our recovery will be miserable if companies survive, but only at the expense of the wages and conditions of the people who work for them. That’s not what today’s sacrifice is for.
4. Everything else has to happen
We need some luck, too. A mild winter, to keep the rate of infection down. An early vaccine. And the rest of the world not descending into unimaginable chaos. Not to be alarmist, but protecting ourselves from that might be harder than getting the weather right.
5. Keeping the faith
The last big thing we need to go our way? Belief.
Rates of infection will go up before they go down, we’ve been warned about this from the start. Doesn’t mean the containment strategy is failing. We need more, we need better, as in everything above. But we need to hold on to our determination and hope. We always say it about this country, there’s no better place in the world to make something work. It’s still true.