GUEST BLOG: Bryan Bruce – Covipolitics

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Judith Collins lambasting the government over what she calls a “massive failure on border testing” got her some media attention yesterday and possibly some political traction.

On the one hand, good on her, it’s the job of the Opposition to hold the government to account and raising the issue of border testing is a good thing.

On the other hand , not very understanding.

Covid -19 is proving itself to be a very tricky virus that can lie in wait on surfaces for an unknown number of hours or hitch a ride in people who show no symptoms but carry it to others who can then become very sick and even die. So we’re learning as we go along that this bug is not an easy one to control.

The government could of course bring in draconian measures – close the border completely, compel everyone wear gloves and mask, force everyone to have Covid-19 tests and blood tests, put large fines and penalties in place for people who flaunt the Level rules – but then you get people protesting in the streets about the power of the State and the rights of the individual.

Much better to win consensus than demand obedience.

And you can’t have it all ways . You can’t insist we open up our economy and our borders while at the same time demand we are kept safe from this virus.

It’s been a massive learning curve for all governments around the world .

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Yes in hindsight there are always things one can point to regarding how a crisis like this pandemic has been handled and say things could have been done better.

But in the heat of the fast decision making required to deal with this pandemic I think the very low spread and number of deaths from Covid-19 compared to what we have seen in many,many other countries, shows our Public Health officials and the government have, over all, done a very good job so far.

Let’s put politics to one side and continue to give them our support on this public health issue.

Stay safe.
Kia kaha

Bryan Bruce is one of NZs most respected documentary makers and public intellectuals who has tirelessly exposed NZs neoliberal economic settings as the main cause for social issues.

15 COMMENTS

  1. Governments too eager to open up the their domestic economies are paying the price, with Italy (once the ONLY European nation infected) suffering a surge in cases that has triggered a lot of backtracking. And Australia, of course.

    ‘It took a weekend to take Italy back three months in its struggle against the pandemic, writes Lorenzo Tondo, in Caltanissetta.

    Last week’s rapid increase in coronavirus infections risks erasing the progress made by the first European country to be engulfed by Covid-19 and extending the closure of schools in September.

    ‘The alarm was sounded last Saturday, when Italy registered 629 new cases in 24 hours, up from 500 on the previous two days. Such numbers recorded in a row had not been seen since May, when Italy cautiously emerged from one of the longest lockdowns in the world after more than 30,000 Covid-related deaths.

    On Sunday the government ordered the closure of discotheques and made masks compulsory outdoors in specific areas at night – the first real restrictions since the lockdown eased.’

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/aug/19/coronavirus-live-news-global-cases-near-22m-as-wall-street-record-defies-economic-gloom

    The gulf between reality and what politicians say about the future is beyond staggering: BAU is over.

    So, with perpetual* bailouts from central banks the system may stagger on for a few more months
    -making everything that matters worse- and then collapse.

    Even as I type the ‘clown’ Seymour is talking about the need to get tunnels in Auckland [that will NEVER provide a positive return on energy and resources invested] constructed.

    * The point will soon be reached at which central bank bailouts will no longer be possible.

  2. “It’s been a massive learning curve for all governments around the world ”
    governments including their opposition parties.

    And you can’t spend decades running down public services and converting public servants to the neo-liberal religion – equipping them with corporate values and culture, and then expect them to be super-heroes in a time of crisis. There’s no doubt Ashley Bloomfield does, and has done the best that’s possible in such an environment.
    It turns out there is such a thing as society

    • Answer;
      We must now listen to the NZ scientists who have yesterday and last week shown the way forward but the media is the problem still today as they are not covering the comments and advice these excellent NZ scientists are saying to us all.

      Fix the media and we can win this fight or do nothing about the lazy media and we will fail.
      Here is our press release on this yesterday’

      https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2008/S00232/ceac-throws-urges-govt-to-do-serology-covid-19-tests-on-border-and-isolation-workers.htm

      CEAC Throws Support Behind Others urging Govt To Do Serology Covid 19 Tests On Border And Isolation Workers.
      Wednesday 19th August 2020
      Political/Environmental/Health – Press Release: Citizens Environmental Advocacy Centre
      Health officials are stumped by the case and are being urged to use serology testing which could reveal if a person has had the disease even if they haven’t had a positive Covid test.
      There are so many new voices calling for Serology antibody testing to compliment the PCR test out there now not to take the advice of the scientific community now.
      CEAC Throws Support Behind Others urging Govt To Do Serology Covid 19 Tests On Border And Isolation Workers.
      This serology “antibody test” is used widely elsewhere including Australia so CEAC are stumped as to why Government have not used this more accurate test on all workers who come in contact with our borders including the truck freight industry.
      Serology antibody testing could show if a third person is the missing link between the worker and the infected woman isolating in the hotel, and a growing list of scientists are now pushing for the blood testing to be rolled out to thousands of border workers to more accurately map the spread.
      The blood test is more commonly known as a serology or anti-body test, cannot diagnose someone with an active Covid-19 infection, but it can confirm if they have had the virus in the past – even if the person was asymptomatic or had mild symptoms.
      EVIDENCE.
      TVNZ Q+A Jack Tame interviewed Professor Tony Blakely a NZ scientist at Melbourne University about how best could NZ fight the new outbreak of Covid 19 this last week, and during the interview.
      Public health professor Michael Baker and NZ scientist said the test would be useful to map how the virus spread from the woman to the maintenance worker at Rydges Hotel two weeks after the infected guest had left – and the pair had no physical contact.
      “They appear to have been infected with a Covid-19 virus of the same genetic lineage.
      “So it does suggest very strongly that that was source infection for this case, but then you want to reconstruct what happened between the person staying in the hotel and this maintenance worker being infected.”
      Doing the serology testing on all Rydges Hotel staff would show if other people who had missed out on Covid testing had been exposed to the virus, Baker said.
      “You really want to know whether other staff involved who might have been passed the virus on perhaps asymptomatically to this maintenance worker, or were they infected potentially from a contaminated surface there.
      “It has real implications for how we manage these facilities.
      “So this would be a situation where it would be justifiable I think, to use serological tests and to try and reconstruct that line of transmission.”
      TVNZ Q+A Professor Blakely stated clearly that all who are in contact with our borders, including the Ports must be tested fully for present infections with the PCR (swab test) and if the infection was over two weeks ago, he recommends testing with the serology antibody test for finding any past infections after two weeks.
      Dr Blakely reminded Jack Tame that the PCR (Swab test) was not “perfect” and 20% failed to be accurate, showing false negative results after two weeks out from infection. This was Dr Blakely’s reason for recommending the serology antibody test as well was to have complete accurate results.
      Ministry of Health clearly should be doing this now or we risk the case that we do not have adequate data to understand ‘how and why’ the latest community Covid cluster has emerged this week, so they are concentrating at the cold store site where containers are transported by trucks, CEAC assume all drivers are tested, – If not we must now test all our freight transport drivers and incorporate this with the current ‘swab test’- and “the antibody test (also called a serology test.) which confirm all who develop immunity to Covid 19 for true accurate test results.
      Immunologist Nikki Moreland said the serology testing could paint a broader picture of what was going on at the border and at the Rydges Hotel.
      It would give clues about transmission where swab testing had not been able to.
      “I think it could help to understand where the virus might have been in people that we haven’t detected it with through normal surveillance mechanisms.
      “That could be particularly useful in people that may have very mild symptoms and aren’t even really necessarily aware that they’ve been exposed or infected,” she said.
      Clinical microbiologist Dr Arlo Upton said health officials might get more clues about the Rydges case and the community cluster if all border staff take the blood test as well as the regular Covid swabs.
      “Although it would be perhaps a little bit logistically difficult, it’s my belief that it would be worth offering serological testing to people who have been working around the border in recent months to provide us with a little bit more information around what’s happened with the recent issues.”
      Dr Gary McAuliffe, medical director at the laboratory Labtests agreed.
      The tests could play a crucial role in providing answers to the origins of the outbreak, he said.
      “Where serology really has its value is outside the first week or two of symptoms where somebody may not be PCR positive anymore, but serology may play a key role in picking up if someone’s had exposure in the past and helping to link back to previous cases.”
      He said the testing should be part of the government’s border control plan.
      NZ Ministry of Health/Minister need to test all road freight workers for Covid 19 now to fully secure our borders, as any infected transport workers could freely move around the country to spread the pandemic widely and destroy our community health and economic future.
      Ministry of Health clearly should be doing this now or we risk the case that we do not have adequate data to understand ‘how and why’ the latest community Covid cluster has emerged this week, so they are concentrating at the cold store site where containers are transported by trucks, CEAC assume all drivers are tested, – If not we must now test all our freight transport drivers and incorporate this with the current ‘swab test’- and “the antibody test (also called a serology test.) which confirm all who develop immunity to Covid 19 for true accurate test results.
      Transport operations
      Most freight drivers manually touch the freight as it is offloaded from trucks so if any driver has Covid 19 it will be easily spread widely around the country, so CEAC calls on Government to have all truck freight operators to be tested now and every two weeks for Covid 19 to reduce community spread of Covid 19.
      Review;
      Ministry of Health must conduct full Covid 19 testing of all our citizens firstly and complete a full assessment of any presence of Covid 19 infections using both the PCR (swab test) and the serology antibody test.
      We must have mass testing of all our community firstly then use a solid controlled ‘tracing of the Covid 19’ to have a ‘robust tracing process’ to fight Covid 19.
      We are all in this together.

      • Don’t get me started on the media @Cleangreen! There were a few things f-f-f-Fafoi could have done, just as he and I L-G could have done with INZ and the Labour Inspectorate. I know one of them was ‘preoccupied’, but the pair of them must both be experts in the art of incrementailsm, procrastination and kicking cans down roadways.
        Incidentally, the pair of them are apparently really nice blokes and not short of a brain cell or two. And while Rome wasn’t built in a day, taking timeout for a blowjob while it burns isn’t really that classy.

      • Btw @ CG, if the gNatz had their way, we’d be relying on philanthropy to ensure PSB and plurality of voice. I’m not sure Labour has really thought it all through properly but as things stand, it could turn out to be their worst enema. Bad enough as things are “in this space going forward”, PSB has, over the years, had its “fundamentals” ripped out from underneath (such as as assets including purpose-built TV studios, Broadcasting House Wellington, transmitters, Natural History Units, NFUs and various other bits and peices), and now functions on the goodwill of its participants and shoestring financing.
        I’ve no doubt if Labour does eventually ‘click’, it’ll come with a raft of unnecessary “rebranders”, ticket-clippers and various other ralstons, hoskings and Willy-Wonker hangers-on

    • That’s it in a paragraph OWT.

      Professionals have pointed out for years, in papers and at least one book, that NZ’s public health system is as co-ordinated as a busted mirror. Public Healthcare run on a business model (always with the ulterior motive of driving people into the private sector) has resulted in admin bloat, regional distortions in outcomes, underfunding, depts contesting for funds, and a splintered approach to major emergencies and especially a full tilt pandemic.

      The health system needs to centralised urgently, all the DHBs and CEOs sacked. It is quite clear that various people in the public sector are full on neo liberals and take the piss by not doing what they are instructed to, and leaking to their close friends in National and the media. Covid is the perfect opportunity to fix this mess and take control–will Labour tops and the Caucus ever get this message?

      • and leaking to their close friends in National and the media.

        We’ve seen that, yes.

        will Labour tops and the Caucus ever get this message?

        They’re a bit busy at the moment, doing the hard slog of actually keeping us all safe, working around the clock to protect us from this world pandemic. It must seem like a thankless task at times.

  3. What an obscene way to gain “traction”. Offer absolutely nothing meaning…but Attack, ridicule and undermine a Government during a pandemic. If Collins was doing that over a debate to build a bypass somewhere in NZ then fair enough but it’s not. Respecting rules put in place during a pandemic is what keeps us safe and our loved ones alive. We’ve seen exactly what happens around the world when rules are not respected. It ALWAYS ends in carnage and death. The despicable Judith Collins couldn’t possibly care less about that. The only thing she cares about is National being Government and her being the Prime Minister at ANY PRICE. What she is doing all day every day with the full co-operation of our alleged media is tantamount to treason.

    The fact you say “good on her” in this piece is far king astonishing.

  4. Well I do recall people like Hosking saying ‘why cant we be more like Australia’ now he has been silenced along with the other idiots calling for the same thing.

  5. Well I do recall people like Hosking saying ‘why cant we be more like Australia’ now he has been silenced along with the other idiots calling for the same thing.

  6. The border policy that is to be announced this morning by the Nats, it will – indeed, must – be totally foolproof in every respect.
    Anything less will show them up for the charlatans they are.
    Because, unlike the government who have had to grapple with this unprecedented issue from day one and have inevitably made mistakes, the Nats have had more than six months to sit back, observe and draw up their foolproof plans and policy.
    In fact, with the suggestions they’ve made along the way, they’ve already stuffed up.
    Open borders anyone?
    So whatever they issue today will be words, and only words…..

  7. News of National releasing their Covid recovery plan and them saying it would be something similar to their Canterbury Earthquake Recovery plan should have many worried, cause many people are still recovering from there last recovery plan and some have never recovered.

    • Very true, Covid is Pa. Why the press are not questioning Ms Collins or anyone from their party on this, I don’t know.

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