The Emperor's Robes - The Observations of Alex Davis

Over two weeks ago in an article I published on June 3 rd (see below) I predicted that New Zealand could not keep Covid19 out. Those predictions are now proving 100% correct.  Barely a week into level 1 and with the borders supposedly closed we have: 6 people absconding from a funeral 2 women taking a road trip from Auckland to Wellington and creating over 300 “close contacts” Revelations that testing is not even mandatory in quarantine. As I outlined it was almost certain that Covid19 would return to New Zealand. Even with traffic across the border reduced to less than 5% there are still too many movements and Covid19 is too contagious to viably prevent every single case of re-entry. That high probability was made inevitable by the incompetence of Ardern and her government. The government is now scrambling to contain the outbreak at both a health and public relations level . The latest outbreak however raises the much broader issue I discussed in detail below. Even if we so...

After ten days of no new Covid19 cases many New Zealanders are likely to be feeling a mixture of relief and complacency. The country dodged a bullet - now there is just the journey back to normality.   However for those prepared to look honestly at the challenges facing New Zealand a return to normality is neither simple nor guaranteed. In fact, there are strong arguments that New Zealand’s much triumphed “eradication” may have instead painted the country into corner. At this point in time two likely futures radiate out in front of New Zealand and neither is pretty. There are others of course, mostly involving heroic suspensions of reality by academics such as Michael Lee who prove just how far removed from reality our tertiary institutions have become. Instead let’s focus on the two most probable.   Future 1: Covid19 is not eliminated and breaks out or returns New Zealand’s drastic seven week lock down at levels 3 and 4 was effective in the same way that burning...