TLDL & TLDR: The pressure is growing on the Government’s elimination and hard lockdown strategy, which was extended for at least a week yesterday for Auckland and potentially longer for the rest of the country.
ACT leader David Seymour last night called for an end to the elimination strategy, while the Malaghan Institute’s Professor Graham Le Gros has again challenged the sustainability of the strategy.
I asked the PM last night how high New Zealand’s vaccination rate would need to be to ensure the health system could cope with inevitable outbreaks if the borders were opened. She again declined a threshold figure, but rejected suggestions the health system couldn’t cope even if vaccination got over 90% of the total population. She also declined to say if summer festivals could be held, but was hopeful they could be. The exchanges are replayed in the podcast above.
My view: The Government is in a bind and is doing its best to buy as much time as it can before inevitably being forced to open up next year when vaccination rates are headed over 70% towards 80%. It hopes there will be better vaccines by then because our health system can’t cope for an extended period with the thousands of hospitalisations and hundreds of deaths expected each year, even with vaccination rates over 90%.
I remain of the view we won’t be able to travel easily until late 2023, given the danger of Covid delta and future variants getting through the border, and because Australia is unlikely to have its pandemics under control next year.
Questions for ministers today:
How high does the vaccination rate of everyone (not just adults) need to go to ensure more open borders and fewer ongoing restrictions don’t lead to outbreaks that overwhelm our health system?
When will new MIQ vouchers for non-emergency cases start being issued again by MBIE?
What is happening with the Government’s deliberations on weekly resurgency payments, an events insurance scheme, ongoing weekly wage subsidies, and some sort of rent relief for small businesses?
What assumptions did Cabinet make to say Auckland could drop to level 3 from next Tuesday night? IE Did it assume no new mysteryy cases?
I welcome your suggestions for questions to ministers in the comments below.
News breaking this morning locally
ACT leader David Seymour called for an end to the elimination strategy and said Auckland should be allowed to stay at Delta level 2 (RNZ Checkpoint)
Meanwhile, Auckland University’s Professor Rod Jackson said Aucklanders should have been told they would have to stay in level 4 lockdown for at least two weeks, rather than one. (RNZ Checkpoint)
The Malaghan Institute’s Professore Graham Le Gros, who is leading New Zealand’s own vaccine research programme, again challenged the sustainability of the elimination strategy.
The Auckland couple who used an essential worker exemption to drive to Hamilton and then fly to their holiday home in Wanaka got name suppression last night and their QC is set to apply for an even longer one. (Stuff)
Globally overnight
China’s latest Covid outbreak in Fujian province was started by a returnee from overseas who had completed a full 21 days in isolation. (CNN)
China’s Government announced it would force the breakup of Alipay to ensure it controlled the data used by its consumer credit card and personal loan business to do credit scores. The move drove the Hang Seng down 1.5% overnight. (Reuters, FT-$$$)
Traders in litecoin issued a fake press release last night saying their cryptocurrency would be accepted by Walmart, which caused an initial 30% spike. Walmart then denied it and litecoin gave up those gains and fell more than 2%. (CNBC)
The oil price rose 1% to a six-week high of US$73.51/bbl of brent crude after OPEC issued a surprisingly upbeat oil demand forecast for 2022. It saw demand rising almost 1m bbl/day to 100.8m bbl/day next year, which would be above pre-Covid levels. (Oilprice.com)
Congressional Democrats proposed an increase in the US corporate tax rate to 26.5% from 21% and an effective increase in capital gains taxes. (Reuters)
The WSJ-$$$ reported from a trove of leaked documents how Facebook had created a so-called’ ‘XCheck’ list of VIP users who did not have to comply with the social network’s rules to combat misinformation.
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Ka Kite ano
Bernard
Good question. Will have a crack at 1pm today.
I heard some of the request were declined because the "applicant" didn't provide enough information or the paperwork was incorrectly completed. Sufficient evidence would be doctors receipts/invoices/verification, confirmation from a Funeral Director etc. Unfortunately, the NZ government don't really have step by step procedures when initiating a policy....so folks end up making it up as you go. Then they get frustrated and give up. So nothing surprises me now.
I read the supplementary tables in the modelling paper on reopening. What I would call the average case scenarios were incredibly grim. Hospitals overwhelmed multiple times over.
Even with keeping borders shut I don't see how extended periods of domestic restrictions are avoidable given Delta's propensity to escape MIQ.
That's my concern. Can't move forward. Can't move back. Without massive investment and expansion in ICU system, or a holy grail new vaccine.
It's all very tricky. Even a holy grail new vaccine wouldn't be enough according to my reading of the paper, at current uptake levels. Unless maybe it was literally perfect.
Just a question, why do you focus on the unrealistic best case scenario in your commentary? I looked up the paper because what you were describing seemed tolerable but certainly far from ideal.
I agree with all of this.
One of the problems with the Lancet study is that it oversimplifies things significantly. For example it doesn't attempt to model 'colateral damage' from an overwhelmed health system and it models with no public health interventions beyond vaccine. In addition to that it was created before a lot of data on delta was available. (The headline assumption is with R4.5, 80% VE/i etc., which we now know is more like R6.0 and VE/i in the 70s).
Clearly the government is looking for more up to date and comprehensive modelling. Shaun Hendy said in the Health Committee last week they have that work underway right now. It should make for an interesting read in the coming weeks.
Thanks James. That's useful thanks. Will watch out for it.
I didn't want to be too alarmist, and I think 90% is realistic in some places. But scary enough to worth reporting.
I like the French solution if Minister of Health causes death or fails to adequately protect the population they’re hauled in front of the Court of Justice for negligence causing deaths. Bravo. The answers aren’t complex it’s simple infection control at borders and vaccinate. Very traditional approaches. Our hospitals need improving anyway and the staff looked after as well. Hoping they move on to other work and reform needing doing soon.This is not a winning election strategy or legacy given they caved to pressure to let it in causing these outbreaks so this over complicating and over analysing is irritating.
No one is asking how the government deem the vaccine effective when global reports show it is clearly not. Just look at Israel who are on their 5th booster shot.
Marvellous to note though as power and net we’re lost last night due to lightning strikes (it’s usually car crashes) the old tech phone still worked, the pyroclastic wood burner kept the place warm and heated water and food. Simplifying and old tech seems to work just fine and for little cost! Given these events are becoming more commonplace in rural NZ due to climate change (and these events happening around the country currently) it’s a nice reminder we don’t actually need to reinvent the wheel or rely on tech to be safe and comfortable if we build right, in the right places and prepare. Food security seems to be ok except as usual for the “too poor”. We need a Government that ensures everyone has access to what they need to be safe.
Not too mention the good old wireless radio which was the other only piece of tech to continue to work as systems all failed 😂
I’d like to see NZ Post postal codes used to refine areas of interest and lockdown. Every address has a postal code which can be found online via the NZ Post website. Their use would remove the need to know just where the Auckland boundaries begin and end. It would also allow the use of mesh blocks to track mobile vaccination clinic coverage.
Dara. Sadly trying to contain people to those postcodes would be a nightmare.
I would love more questions asked and answers given about what we need to do now to make our health system fit for purpose. Even with high vaccination rates, there will still be people who get sick. Lockdowns have bought time, but we've not done nearly enough with it. Is anyone asking about the amount of money needing to be thrown at wage subsidies now and whether we'd (have been) better off investing in hospitals and paying healthcare workers enough money that they don't want to head to Australia or elsewhere for decent salaries? I genuinely think the only real way back to any sort of normal is getting our hospitals better able to cope (and getting and keeping vaccination rates high).
Absolutely. A huge disappointment for someone who'd probably have voted Labour (if I could vote, but...not a resident yet) They've done so little. With a huge mandate. Could've been so much more done on housing and child poverty as well as healthcare and immigration.
The government has slowly and steadily been moving away from the Group vaccination approach. The current covid outbreak has helped the numbers grow by giving people an obvious reason to get vaccinated. However, even allowing for the fact that specific groups may not be being recorded when people go for a vaccination (especially at drive-throughs etc), I'd like to understand if the government has any idea at all of how many of Group 3 have been vaccinated, given that they are more vulnerable than Group 4. It may be that we now have a large group of relatively safe people vaccinated, along with a high proportion of vulnerable people that aren't, and my guess is they have no idea whether they do nor not. Also, given that Ardern said yesterday that the "strategy is to vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate", it would be good to know if she now believes / admits their relaxed approach to vaccination at the end of last year and beginning of this was the wrong one?
You should talk to some of the NZ Citizens ( a lot of whom are pensioners) stuck in Australia with very little means of support waiting to come home from covid free areas, with double dose vaccinations.
The govt is cancelling their pensions and requires them to pay back pensions paid while stuck in Australia.
Thanks Sally. Can you ask them to send me their details. Email best. cheers
Hi Bernard. I love your comments but youre missing a critical point. By asking what vaccination level we need to reopen you imply that hospital capacity is fixed. Its not. What we should be asking is how much pandemic surge capacity do we need to reopen now. Dont clog up our hospitals. Unused sports arenas should be reconfigured as covid wards with ICU at one end. If we need more nurses fly them in with the promise of citizenship after 2 years. This should not be difficult and it would get us moving again. After covid 19 put the equipment into storage for Covid 22 and so on.
I tend to agree. There's no quick fix for our beleaguered health sector (100% respect to those working in it), but there are plenty of examples of other countries setting up temporary surge capacity to manage waves. It allows flexibility and means we can adapt conditions as required. It also means we can redeploy it, for other emergency uses, as needed. So I guess the question might be: 'Rather than look for big ticket, long term solutions, what options is the Government exploring to grow our temporary surge capacity, as other Governments have successfully done?'
Nicely put. Weve all seen those wartime photos of rows of beds in nissan huts and warehouses. Theres no need for special precautions apart from good ppe for staff as all the patients coming in are already sick. Weve been told that were at war with the virus, so lets start acting as if its true.
Good question. I'll try Hipkins tomorrow on temporary surge capacity.
Thanks John. Interesting idea. I'll have a chat to a few ICU doctors.
You've got to break eggs to make omelette. Summer festivals, seriously? Government needs to start breaking eggs and being honest about the situation the health sector and the country is in!
Here in the trenches on the frontline it's becoming increasingly apparent that people are bucking the lockdown regime. Testing numbers are nowhere near high enough to assure that the figures we're getting are giving us an accurate depiction of the real extent of community spread - we're seeing evidence of it in random people presenting at ERs and testing positive.
There is no perfect world where 100% of symptomatic people get tested. If I might venture a guess as to why that might be, I'd strongly suggest that's because of the practice of throwing COVID+ people into MIQ, or 'COVID jail', as people are calling it. IMHO this practice needs to end immediately if they want to get testing numbers and contact tracing to where it needs to be to have a chance of ending this - it's critical, people on the margins aren't going to comply if the result is punitive. And it is punitive - people already on the bottom rungs of a vastly, outrageously inequitable society feel hard done by. How dare the people that put them there, and do nothing to help them scold them for that suspicion and 'antisocial' paranoia...
There is no amount of whining and pleading from the ivory towers and swanky $2million+ average house price suburbs that will change that reality on the street. Our bourgie elite needs to wake-up to that reality and meet them halfway, or just give it up - those are the stakes we're dealing with here.
Compulsory quarantine in lousy MIQs has to go, last week, if they want to get the common folk on their side - they're not out there storming the Bastille, but they've gone deaf to the Usual Suspects tut-tutting them with the usual condescension. I'm here, in my community, doing the 'hard yards' (no I don't want any thanks! Please shut up!!), and this is what I hear and see...
That's a really valid point. I'm fairly sure I had RSV recently so I did get tested. However, my wife and I live by ourselves and have two dogs but no family or really close friends we could leave them with if I tested positive and we both got slung into MIQ, so I did think about it for a bit before I went. It was only chatting with family and friends overseas when it dawned on me that this approach is fairly unique (I'm sure the government would argue it is a necessary control but it certainly feels very authoritarian to me). I know your point wasn't necessarily aimed at me as such but I can see exactly what you are saying.
The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. It's no secret this outbreak is concentrated and incubating in the poorest areas of Auckland - people can't do this anymore. They can't afford to 'self-isolate' or tighten their belts for months on end, they can't work remotely, they live in crowded conditions and mixed bubbles because of the housing crisis ... we're talking about people barely hanging-on at the fringes in the best of times, small businesses struggling to stay solvent.
There's desperation in the air, we're stretched too thin - and in this 'bubble' it feels like we're being forgotten, We've got Goffy today talking about people living 'below subsistence level' and I'm not sure the rest of the 'team of 5 million' understands what that really means ... People are giving up, because the disease can't be worse than the cure. That sentiment will assuredly get shouted-down by certain people I'm sure we all know, but maybe they should just shut up (for the record I think Ardern is a very good PM, and I think she's just looking for an off-ramp at this point) - the more they talk and dig their heels in the
The people with a voice (media/government/academia) in this unusual situation are not plugged-in to this simmering discontent (with a few exceptions) or properly cognizant of the incipient social crisis unfolding quietly in isolation. I think we've passed a tipping-point - as much as people might think they can de-politicize this, Labour will fold when the polls start tipping against them - just like Australia. This may happen quite a bit more quickly than many suspect, given that South and West Auckland are bastions of Labour support.
I'll keep an eye out for that polling shift. Will see when The Spinoff is planning another Sticky Beak poll.
Thanks Barley. Know any people in Auckland willing to say that publicly? Give them my email address. cheers
Bernard, thankyou for advocating an alternative political vision (on our behalf - rest assured! We need people to speak-up louder for us); I would like to, but I'm not going to because I don't want my name or those those of my friends and acquaintances to be dragged through the dirt in the national/social media. The public shaming and Facebook lynch-mobs, and potential legal and economic consequences require discretion.
We live in a society in which an All Black guilty of a vicious assault and violent threats gets-off with a punishment that doesn't even amount to a slap with a wet bus ticket, while 'essential' workers who go to their job one day and get accidentally infected with an almost unstoppably virulent disease suffer worse consequences. This country has lost the plot - no I won't cooperate (for the record: the only time I've left my house is to vaccinated. I care, I'm afraid - but I can't afford to be, I'm swamped by anxieties that've been building for a decade and more... I don't know what to do Bernard, I don't want to be here anymore - I'm ready to roll the dice on COVID, with the shot in my arm; such is life on the margins).
And that is exactly why this lockdown is failing. You're not seeing it, because you're not here, you don't know any of us ... I've got a sinking feeling. We have so much to worry about, so many fears for the/our future - and where does COVID even rate next to global warming, the housing crisis (we can't afford to live where we live, we're not even allowed to move), etc. People are more afraid of authority now than they are of the virus. There's no shitty self-selecting Facebook poll that's gonna capture this acutely-targeted distress, because nobody is asking us, nobody is attentive to our advocates. We're not idiots, or ignorant (Kelvin Davis ... you Ffff ...).
Thanks Barly. Completely understand the reluctance. Be safe. Things will get better. One way or another. Thanks.
Thanks Bernard for putting that question to them, definitely is the correct way to approach this particular discussion / problem. Much more productive than the right winger hand wringing.
I would like to know why the govt isn't following their own alert level risk assessment which was updated last week. From this, Auckland should be at 4 and the rest at 1 https://covid19.govt.nz/assets/resources/tables/COVID-19-Alert-Levels-summary-table.pdf
Thanks Terri. The PM's view was risk of the Auckland outbreak blowing up if there was an 'escape' from Auckland. Just one super spreader event would do the trick.
Then why publish something that they aren't intending to follow? Business needs a plan and we're not getting one. And when there is a glimmer of one - like the alert level risk assessment, they don't follow it anyway.
Oh and sorry - I meant Auckland at 3 (not 4 as in my initial post)
What happened to the UN Delta-stricken woman in Middlemore Hospital Helen Clark arrange to be flown in? Thanks
If you're talking about the UN person flown in from Fiji, pretty sure she recovered.
Ok say I ask because various Twitter people who claim to have the inside word insist she is the one who brought Delta into NZ and tonight Stuff reports she has not recovered. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300425248/covid19-un-worker-medivaced-to-nz-is-stable-but-still-in-hospital-70-days-on Someone on Twitter called Amy Jones claims a nurse caught it from the UN person and that is why various mystery Covid cases of interest appeared unexplained ..such as Bus 25B City Centre to Blockhouse Bay 4 Aug and Countdown Lynfield same day. And that was the unresolved issue of how Delta came here. Of course it is a great conspiracy theory that if that was the case, it is why the Govt with its Helen Clark connections would suppress it. But it would be good for someone to actually dig and it is good to at last see Stuff revealing that the person did not go back home to wherever after all! Appreciate if you could please ask.
I think it'd be interesting to see some exploration of what next year might realistically look like. Some key issues I can think of are:
* Will the modelling show things are too risky to follow the 'A' plan outlined by Skegg et al? (i.e. your thesis from last week)
* If so, will the government choose to delay 'material' changes (i.e. beyond trials and exemptions for some vaccinated business/sports visitors) until it can vaccinate under 12s and give boosters to the more at-risk population? Until end of next year for example.
* What would restrictions look like in a mostly open-border scenario to keep the R value down to a 'manageable' level? Quite likely this will be mean rolling restrictions, occasional regional lockdowns like we have now albeit hopefully briefer, mandatory masking, limits to hospitality, large events, venue capacity, and the like. And very limited international visitors in the next 12-24 months.
* What would the impact look like on the health system? What should people reasonably expect in terms of access to health care, surgery, etc.
* What business support would the government be rolling out if we don't have L4 lockdowns but theoretically L2.5s instead? This could potentially be much tougher for businesses if the support isn't there. And do we believe it will be? I am skeptical.
A lot of this is pretty foreseeable already given what we know and there are plenty of experts who would give some good insights.
IMO the sooner we can all get to grips with what we're likely to face in the most likely scenario assuming the government charges ahead, the better. A lot of people and businesses are still living in a fantasy land where things will be more or less 'COVID-normal' next year but with increased international travel.
The most worrying aspect for me is the government's apparent commitment to go ahead with this despite lagging vaccination rates in Maori and Pacifica. If this is not sorted before borders are relaxed it could be a calamity.
Fantastic questions James. Particularly on the likely restrictions at high vaccinations, and likely support needed. There's a bunch of tradeoffs and modelling that I hope someone inside Government is doing. cheers
I found a few reports that may be interesting read from the OECD site. (1) Number of medical doctors and nurses -https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/en/data-insights/number-of-medical-doctors-and-nurses (2) Hospital beds - acute care - https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/en/data-insights/hospital-beds-acute-care
Singapore is a really good comparable to NZ.
Question for PM: Instead of planning for reopening the economy for 'business as usual' or 'return to (the pre-Covid) normal', should New Zealand instead be taking this opportunity to transition into a 'new normal' level of economic activity and consumption that would that would keep us within planet sustainability limits. (refer to Kate Raworth 'Doughnut Economics'). This could for example involve a pivot away from international tourism, both inbound and outbound, as consumption that causes excessive carbon emissions.