Extreme measures

Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s Left-wing prime minister, won plaudits from some quarters for pursuing an uncompromising strategy to eliminate Covid-19 from her country. For a period, this appeared to bring some success, albeit only by cutting New Zealand off from the rest of the world, a policy of autarky that more sophisticated economies such as the UK could never have pursued without enormous cost.

Last week, however, after 102 days without a new case of the infection, a small cluster was detected that Ms Ardern believed necessitated the reimposition of restrictions on parts of the country. At the weekend she went even further and announced that the general election planned for September would be postponed. When Donald Trump suggested earlier in the pandemic that the American presidential elections might be delayed, he was accused of launching a chilling attack on the democratic process. Ms Ardern’s move, by contrast, has been accepted largely uncritically.

Ms Ardern’s political opponents have backed the delay, seeing some advantage in a longer campaign. Yet is it really proportionate? On Sunday, New Zealand reported just 13 new cases of Covid-19, which, even accounting for the country’s small population, is miniscule. There has not been a Covid death there since May.

At the very least the decision calls into question the practicality of seeking to eliminate the virus, even in a low-density country such as New Zealand, without living under the constant fear that restrictions will have to be reapplied. More broadly, it highlights a disturbing tendency across the West to accept the curtailment of basic freedoms with barely any debate.