Predictions about NZ’s Covid19 Future Proved Correct

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 somehow manage to stamp this outbreak out what then? How long can we continue to play national “whack a mole”? How long before an outbreak occurs that we can’t contain? Given that we know up to 20% of US cases came from a single individual there is a high probability that eventually a case will slip though and give rise to an uncontrollable reinfection.

At that point all the sacrifices by the “team of 5 million” will have been in vain: all the funerals missed, the jobs and businesses lost, the suicides, the billions spent, the mothers unable to say good bye to dead children: ALL will have been for nothing. Except of course for those members of the community who open ignored the rules of course – like the 50+ funeral held at Karetu, Te Tai Tokerau on March 28^th.

However, there is actually a worse outcome than Covid19 getting back in: that is the government actually succeeds in keeping it out. What no one in the media or the many policy wonks in Wellington seem yet to have asked Ardern is: “what is your long-term plan, beyond praying for a vaccine?” As I explain below, the rest of the world will eventually develop herd immunity to Covid19, but New Zealanders “safe” behind our borders will not. The rest of the world will move on and will return to growth and travel and trade. We won’t. How long do we actually plan to stay like this? One year? Two years? Five years? A decade? Two decades? It is quite simply non-viable. We will slowly but surely suffocate and stagnate in a prison we willingly walked into. If you want to see what the future of New Zealand looks like under this scenario look to East Germany under the USSR, North Korea or Cuba (interestingly all experiments in the creed of socialism Ardern subscribes to).

So, what should we do instead? Here’s my 5 cents worth:

First we should have used the valuable time we were gifted through our geographic isolation to build a world class contact tracing system (like the one Taiwan built). What have we done? Nothing effective.

Second, we should have taken the $20 billion we have spent and invested into:

a)       rapidly building high quality health care facilities specifically designed to protect the elderly (where the overwhelming portion of deaths offshore and in NZ have been). For $20 billion we could have had 14 new hospitals the size of the new hospital in Dunedin which serves the entire lower South Island (we would have had those new hospitals for use afterwards as well) and

b)      prepared the health system for those small number of people who would fall sick when Covid19 eventually returns. We still haven’t done this. There has been no ramp up in ICU beds or ventilators despite the fact it’s almost certain Covid19 will return.

Third, we should then open the border and accept Covid19 will come back in with the full confidence that as the data clearly shows offshore unless you are 70+ AND very ill most people will experience either have no symptoms or only extremely mild symptoms. The vast majority of the population will be unaffected and the vulnerable will be safe. Then as more and more New Zealanders develop their own herd immunity we can lower the defences at the various aged care facilities and treat Covid19 exactly the same way we treat a normal seasonal influenza (hygiene and keeping sick people away).

This is not rocket science. Which begs the question why is the government not doing this? There are two potential answers to this question:

First, they are chronically incompetent. This is the charitable interpretation and based on their many failures it is also logically appealing and evidentially sound.

Second, the less charitable interpretation is that the fight against Covid19 has increasingly become less about health outcomes and more about Ardern’s political future and her international reputation. Ardern and her government were almost certainly headed for defeat in November 2020 prior to Covid19 – even the most ardent Labour supporters recognised that her government was uniquely incompetent and incapable of delivering on any of the many promises they made prior to a 2017 election they genuinely did not believe they would win. But Covid19 intervened and while the rest of New Zealand suffered Ardern benefitted from wall to wall, unquestioning media coverage and adoration. She simply cannot now turn around and admit the vast strategic error she has made: it would make a mockery of all the “early and hard”, “team of 5 million” and “be kind” sounds bites she relentlessly spoon fed the media and the public. She is committed and thus so are we. As Euripides warned: “when one with honeyed words but evil mind persuades the mob, great woes befall the state.” I truly hope for New Zealand’s sake this scenario is not the case but the more I watch Ardern the more I fear she has become addicted to the lime light - as George Santayana said: “the highest form of vanity is love of fame.”

Having made a prediction two weeks ago that has transpired exactly as forecast I’ll take my chances on another: the most likely outcome from here is that at some point over the next six months Covid19 will become re-established in New Zealand. The health authorities will fight an ineffective battle to contain it, but like a farmer with a sack beating back a bush fire it will eventually sweep across the country. There will be calls for another lock down: politically and economically whoever is in power will be caught between Scylla and Charybdis and my guess is they will acquiesce in allowing the virus to spread while trying to maintain as much political distance as possible from the ministry of health and immigration officials they will scape goat for the “failures.” IF (and that’s a big IF) on the other hand they manage to keep Covid19 out eventually, as the country grows poorer, more isolated and more dismal the pressure will become too much. After a time whoever is in charge, like the ruler of a besieged city of starving inhabitants, will willingly walk to the walls, throw open the gates and let the Covid19 invader back in. And thus New Zealand will come full circle back to where it started but vastly poorer for Ardern’s grand “elimination” strategy.

***

If you enjoyed this article please SHARE it across FaceBook, Twitter and other platforms. The government is strangling our country, our economy and our future and the only thing they understand or respond to is public pressure.

These articles take a long time to research to ensure they are backed up with data and evidence (unlike those in the mainstream media). I earn nothing from this blog: there is no advertising, no commissions, no paid influence. My only request is that if this message resonated with you please share it because there are other people out there who feel the same way. As Edmund Burke observed “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing.” Those who are destroying our country win when you say nothing.

So if you do enjoy or agree please SHARE. Your support in getting the message out there is greatly appreciated. 

I will endeavour to respond to comments but I can't respond to everyone as I need time to work on my next article. If you would like to contact me please direct message me on twitter @emperorsrobes.

Regards,

Alex Davis.