Covid restraints could remain for five years
The Government’s Covid-19 fix-it man says ‘‘unconstrained freedom’’ from pandemic restrictions at the border is unlikely to come for two to five years.
Sir Brian Roche has confirmed his advisory group, appointed to ‘‘continually monitor’’ by Covid19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins in March, has yet to provide any such real-time advice to the minister.
But the group, which includes former Air NZ chief executive Rob Fyfe and three health experts, had finished a ‘‘hard, big report’’ of the Valentine Day’s cluster response that was now before Cabinet. It found no major failings but problems with ‘‘overly complicated’’ communication to the public.
‘‘I know, this sounds incredibly defensive, it just takes time to get set up and get into an operating
rhythm, engaging with the system,’’ Roche said.
‘‘It’s probably been a slower start than some of us would have liked. The minister was very clear about his expectations of, you know, a much more interactive process. He wants more real-time engagement than long pauses and big heavy reports.’’
Roche said the report on the
February Covid-19 outbreak had recommended that ‘‘casual plus’’ and ‘‘close plus’’ categories for contacts of Covid-19 cases be done away with.
‘‘We think that’s overly complicated ... You need to keep it really simple. I don’t mean it disrespectfully, but, you know, the simpler, the easier it is to follow.’’
The group was now looking at how the Covid-19 response system needed to be set up after the vaccine roll-out was complete. Managed isolation facilities
would likely remain, he said. There would be testing protocols for people entering the country, and proof of vaccination status.
‘‘If you’re looking abroad, and we already have a border with Australia, is it likely we’re going to have an opening at the border with other countries? That would seem to be a potential. But the future system has to respond to the risks that we are exposing ourselves too,’’ he said.
‘‘The freedom at the border is going to have to be evidence based. Again if you look at the international experience . . . everybody is sort of experimenting, they want freedom at the border, but it’s not going to be unconstrained freedom.
‘‘I do think it’s prudent to assume that we’re going to have some form of Covid response for the next, possibly next two to five years,’’ Roche said.
Structural changes to the system, such as the creation of new government entities, was something he would be willing to consider recommending if needed, he said.
Roche last year reviewed the Government’s contact tracing and testing systems and was broadly critical of the minister of health. Yesterday, he said it ‘‘had to be the working assumption’’ that the Ministry of Health was capable to being more interactive in its response to the pandemic.
‘‘I do have that confidence that, you know, everyone was doing the best. The idea of agility and nimbleness is a fundamental to the systems that we need to have . . . I think they’ve demonstrated their ability to respond under pressure, real time to things.’’
National’s Covid-19 response spokesman Chris Bishop said there were smart people in Roche’s group, ‘‘but it’s not at all clear they’ve actually done very much in the last three months’’.
‘‘It’s a bit frustrating because there’s any number of things that we need to be doing some hard thinking about as a country,’’ he said.