Time to put Covid in the past? Not on your life
Today’s issues must not divert us from the need for a full inquiry
The urgent is crowding out the important in the minds of both politicians and citizens alike. It’s no surprise that the “cost of living” featured as the most important issue facing New Zealand right now in a Dynata poll which kicked off the Herald Rebuilding Better project.
It will continue to do so well into 2023 as the inflationary impulse rages untrammelled by the efforts of finance ministers and central bankers to bring it to heel.
The upshot is that 56 per cent of the 1000 New Zealanders polled opted for the “cost of living” as the most important issue facing this country over “climate change” (12 per cent) or the “Covid response” (8 per cent).
In such an environment, Government politicians may be emboldened to discount New Zealand’s response to Covid. After all, it was the Government’s use of mandates which arguably helped trigger the protest that turned violent on Parliament’s front lawn.
But they shouldn’t. Nor should we let them get away with “turning the page”, “moving on from Covid” and all the other slogans that get trotted out when painful questions are raised, including over the societal division that emerged over the use of mandates.
Here’s another important issue: in the US, everyone aged five years and over can get the updated Covid-19 booster — the updated bivalent boosters which offer protection against the latest Omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5, plus the original Covid-19 strain. These vaccines are available free of charge to foreigners as well, as I found out on a recent visit to the US.
But in New Zealand you can’t walk into a pharmacy and get one as they are yet to be approved here.
Yet more subvariants are now being identified here by the Ministry of Health.
And in the US, following the decision to approve the new bivalent booster vaccines, the Food and Drug Administration has specified that the original monovalent Covid-19 vaccines are no longer authorised for use as boosters in people 12 years and older.
New Zealand is not even a fast follower in this important arena.
It’s simply a repeat of the tardy response New Zealand made on ordering vaccines in the first place and the slack approach to the use of rapid antigen tests.
It’s also an affront to personal freedom.
Second, the Government is still to announce the makeup and terms of reference for an inquiry into New Zealand’s Covid-19 pandemic response.
It is important that this necessary measure is not subsumed and put to one side because of the Government’s immediate focus on addressing the cost of living crisis, which will be with us for months — if not years to come — in some form or other.
In the UK an inquiry has been announced which will look into that nation’s pandemic preparedness, the use of lockdowns and other nonpharmaceutical intervention, how hospitals and resthomes managed the virus and more. That will include listening carefully to the experiences
Nor should we let them get away with ‘turning the page’, ‘moving on from Covid’ and all the other slogans that get trotted out when painful questions are raised.
of bereaved families and others who have suffered hardship or loss as a result of the pandemic.
“Although the inquiry will not consider in detail individual cases of harm or death, listening to these accounts will inform its understanding of the impact of the pandemic and the response, and of the lessons to be learned,” said the terms of reference. These also include a focus on the lockdowns’ impact on mental health and the effect on the education of children.
Last month, Greg Rzesniowiecki launched a petition for the New Zealand Parliament to undertake its own public inquiry into the Covid-19 pandemic and the official response; the recommended terms of reference
were to allow a full investigation, including public disclosure of the New Zealand Government’s actions, and encourage public input including testimony, evidence and research.
“New Zealand is participating in negotiations for a global pandemic treaty before publicly reviewing the Covid-19 response,” said Rzesniowiecki. “New Zealand society has been divided by lockdowns and mandates that in my view have caused considerable harm.”
He also wanted such an inquiry to consider NZ-Pfizer contracts and negotiations for supply of Comirnaty and other vaccines and medicines, as well as reviewing decisions about generic antiviral medicines banned in New Zealand but used overseas.
Acting Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins announced two weeks ago that the Government was winding down the extraordinary powers used to fight Covid-19 through the emergency phase of the response while retaining a small number of baseline measures to contain the spread of the virus. But while Hipkins recognises that there needs to be an inquiry to ensure a more enduring system is put in place in case of future threats from Covid-19 and other diseases, the Government is yet to simply get on and announce the inquiry.
Until it does so, grandstanding over the threat that disinformation on Covid poses to national security will remain meaningless.