Delta Lockdown: Political Winners & Losers
There we all were, lounging around in Fortress Aotearoa like there wasn’t a global pandemic happening. Cruising the Shire without fully vaccinated border staff, refusal to build larger MIQ facilities and a devil may care approach to ICU beds propped up by a dangerously underfunded public health system.
What could possibly go wrong?
Our vaccine roll out was mostly dictated to by supply and we have successfully processed 160000 through MIQ with but a handful of outbreaks.
The only threat to our cautious and to date successful approach was Delta slipping past the border and hitting a mostly unvaccinated population.
Welcome to that scenario.
The brutal lockdown straight to level 4 frightened us in a way that big smiles couldn’t easily calm. Vast tracts of Auckland are now places of interest and 20 thousand are possible contacts.
The idea there could be more than 3 places of interest in Auckland would be a joke at any other time, but the reality of how dangerous Covid is in terms of freaking an electorate out is only being truly explored this time around.
People have been queuing from 1.30am to be tested, that’s a city in fear because no one should be queuing for anything at 1.30am in Auckland except for a burger from White Lady.
So this time around it has been scary and the incredibly grim research modeling suggesting 11400 hospitalizations & 1030 dead with a 90% vaccination rate for a virus destined to be endemic is enough to be truly concerned.
When group fear becomes this elongated, there are all sorts of political winners & losers.
Winners:
Jacinda & Labour: once again, her leadership and ability to communicate with compassion and clarity has ensured mass panic has not descended. The danger was always being hit by Delta before we had capacity for the dead and sick or high vaccination rates. If Jacinda can’t stamp out this outbreak and every outbreak until we have a vaccination rate of at least 75%, Labour risk being judged on the failure rather than previous success. To date they have handled this current outbreak with an authority and professionalism that has saved lives and can only be faulted by the malicious.
Simon Bridges & his hairdresser: He’s got bangs and he knows how to use them, Simon’s haircut is as metro sexual as Tories are legally allowed. His book will be a best seller, with it he is speaking over the divided Caucus directly to National voters & the increasingly alienated male electorate. Judith’s most recent Caucus meeting on Zoom was described by one online at the time as ‘an emotional breakdown’ with other members of Caucus fearing Judith would turn on them the way she did poor Chris Bishop, this kind of erratic behavior by Collins is making more of the Caucus actively looking for a new leader before NZ leaves lockdown and that favors a return of Simon.
Oranga Tamariki: They must be so thankful for Delta distracting the attention of the media and electorate from their insanely racist Critical Race Theory uplifts of Maori children from white step-families. Having the CEO attempt to influence a Judge in the middle of an ongoing case is Donald Trump level molestation of due process.
Public Health: NZ has put the people before money and that shock wave has resonated around the world with pundits attacking Jacinda for not having the ‘courage’ to allow Delta to kill her people. Remember that.
Delta COVID: It has mutated to the point of becoming endemic. It will kill thousands here if we don’t use a combination of lockdowns, vaccinations and tight border controls. If it mutates and becomes more lethal we will have to use extreme measures.
Fortress Aotearoa: While the entire mainstream media refuse point blank to allow Fortress Aotearoa to be discussed as a legitimate strategy, more and more New Zealanders see it as an inevitability. There is a fertile groundswell building for a radical nationalism founded on self-sustainability and isolationism.
Hone Harawira & MANA: Once again Hone is leading by doing and his checkpoints to stop Delta is the very kind of self-sustainability and isolationism that could have serious electoral power. Maybe MANA needs to come back? Feed The Kids and protect the moat!
Losers:
ACT: You forget what a juvenile Party ACT are sometimes until they have a brain fart that reminds you they are frightened rabbits with little in the way of deep thinking. Their idea to make scanning in a weekly lottery misses the fact we don’t want people needlessly incentivized to visit more places than they actually intended so as to win $1000. ACT know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Judith Collins: To date her response since going into lockdown has been whining about the anxiety the 1pm daily briefings cause her, demanding Chippy gets sacked and casting shade on Bloomfield during a pandemic. It’s all been petty bullshit as the country faces a national emergency, add to this her latest assault against other National MPs during their Caucus Zoom meeting and Judith must be days away from a Hitler In The Bunker parody right?
Death Cult Capitalists: Trying to force the wage slaves back into the fields while a tornado is still active is proving a tad more difficult than they had hoped for. That the Government is willing to put public health before profit is very angering to them. These poor buggers won’t earn any reward points on their gold cards this year, won’t someone think of the wealthy?
Shopping duopoly: They have been allowed their outrageous duopoly powers because they are supposed to guarantee food security, well they are failing at that! This matters, you aren’t seeing panic because shoppers believe the shop will be restocked the next day, if that doesn’t happen people freak out. This lack of food security is another argument to have the State step in.
Travel Bubble: Pop! Expect more heartbreaking and angry news stories from kiwis who were dumb enough to still be overseas and migrant workers furious their family are being denied entry again. Expect an enormous backlash to rich people self isolating later in the year.
Greens & NZ First: Who? Just as Winston was gaining traction on his attack against the woke, lockdown sucked all the news oxygen from the room. If Winston was smart he would be championing Fortress NZ. The Greens are missing in action again, I imagine they’re having a fierce internal debate over what pronoun Delta should be given.
Mainstream media: They have been braying of late that eradication of the virus is pointless and let’s just bring on the purge because they’re getting a tad peeved off by not getting to travel overseas again. Unfortunately for the MSM pundits once the bodies hit floor, once the bodies hit the floor, once the bodies hit the floor, these same media organizations will be smeared with the death rate and hospitalizations as if it’s the pundits fault. That backlash will be fun to watch.
Conclusion:
Here’s what I think happens next.
All hell breaks lose.
For the 65% who support Jacinda’s public health strategy, this will be framed as life or death.
For the 35% who support Death Cult Capitalism, they will see Jacinda merely delaying the inevitable while they lose money.
The two most powerful forces in politics will be on a collision course in NZ.
The fear of dying by the poor vs the losing of money by the rich.
I believe the debate is about to become excruciatingly polarized & far more hateful.
We are barely comprehending the psychological impact of previous lockdowns and how they are manifesting in our street violence statistics, domestic violence statistics and self harm statistics.
With Delta and the inevitability of endemic spread, every lockdown will generate increasing fury or mass public health emergencies.
For Labour they must keep Covid out until we have a vaccination rate of at least 80%. Because a health emergency swamping our underfunded health system will damage Labour politically, a far tighter and more restrictive border MIQ arrangement is the only way to minimize outbreaks and lockdowns.
For National a change of leadership sooner rather than later is essential. But even then they only win if Delta gets back in and causes mass damage. Simon Bridges is their only shot.
ACT will continue to rise.
Party machinations to one side, they will occur in a ultra polarized and increasingly hateful social media landscape that the Party’s themselves will get swept along in.
Into this radioactive and toxic political dialogue will come the Hate Speech legislation which will see both sides lose their minds.
After each great pandemic in history there has been an enormous civil disruption. Ours is starting now.
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We’re getting all sorts of noises from the Murdoch press about how our anti-covid strategy can’t work, how it’s not realistic etc, along with sarcastic attacks on “Saint Jacinda”. Here are the facts – UK 198 deaths per 100,000. USA 192 deaths per 100,000. Australia 4 deaths per 100,000. New Zealand 0.5 deaths per 100,000. End of discussion.
Why cherrypick bad cases?
Why not include Islands, like Iceland, Singapore, Taiwan, Cyprus?
They haven’t resorted to Level 4 lockdowns and they aren’t suffering the high death rates you have cherry picked.
Singapore still allows Kiwis and Germans and other countries to visit with no MIQ?!!
Cyprus allows entry with a Vaccine passport.
Dang, even the Island of Japan allows foreigners to visit.
Seems NZ knows so much better than anyone else in the world…of course thats BOLLOCKS!
Its our small man/country syndrome at work.
I think you will find the public health services in the countries you mention will be a million miles from the broken, short staffed, basket case that is the NZ health system.
Who is cherry picking – all your examples are islands – none landlocked or even bordering directly with another country.
Your fixation on death rates is also misleading – infections/cases would be a better indicator.
In any event:
Country Population Infections Deaths Death rate
Taiwan 24M 15,947 832 0.0521%
Singapore 5.9M 66,928 52 0.0007%
Cyprus 1.2M 112,532 491 0.0043%
Iceland 350K 10,443 31 0.0029%
Aotearoa 5M 3,227 26 0.0081%
The most similar country to Aotearoa (by population) would be Singapore with twice the number of deaths and twenty times the number of infections.
Iceland’s record is not great either – for a nation of a little over 350,000 they have had 10,443 infections. One assumes the low death rate is due to the strain (less Delta?) and a better health system.
This analysis doesn’t consider vaccinations rates or health systems.
I dunno.
I don’t think labours going to get the post lockdown polling boost like last time cos other govts haven’t and a lot of people are sick of seeing her on tv doing ten mins of spin when all we want is how many cases and where.
A lot of people have gone back to smoking cos a week before lockdown govt restricted vape juice sales. I’m waiting till next week for my delivery
And the south island there’s not a single case and hasn’t been since may if they extend it tomorrow people are going to get angry. Labour holds every e
Accidentally sent in the last one
Labour holds every electorate seat in places like chch and people are losing their jobs every day. If people keep losing their jobs despite there being no cases
I can see the people’s socialist republic of chch going blue.
South island should be on level 3 by Monday at the absolute latest
Collins should concentrate on the constant knives in her back rather than barking at parked cars. Leave the covid questions to her deputy Chris Bishop. National remain a divided party.
The thing is Delta gets you no matter what your pay grade or it appears, your age. Don’t these fuckwits wanting free movement get that?
Or we could do a Sydney…
What a clusterfuck and worsening. The right have won, timid lockdowns to begin with, incrementally tightened ever so half arsed, now that the disease is slipping out of control, Gladys is taking the brakes of and allowing the fully immunised to party. Unenforceable, messy and lethal. This is worse than watching a train wreck combined with the Titanic sinking and reruns of JFK’s assassination.
NSW has become a giant experiment with its citizens featuring as the lab rats. God only knows what other states are thinking.
Go ScoMo, you tool!
or we could do a Singapore? 66000+ cases 50 deaths.
What do they know & do that we dont.
Plus they allow tourists in from low risk countries, like NZ, Australia, Germany. etc
It’s no secret, they have operated strict border controls, lockdowns and even strict restrictions on gatherings over a far longer term than us.
It also no secret the Delta variant has disrupted re-emergence planning the world over.
They were aiming to lift their low vax rate too, there is resistance to taking the vaccination there, and then look at reopening or at least opening up to some next in September but the Delta variant has thrown a spanner in the works.
We’re far from alone dealing with the curve balls this disease throws. And comparing a truly first world country on such a tiny footprint with NZ is not apples for apples in any case.
“…They were aiming to lift their low vax rate too, there is resistance to taking the vaccination there”
So, they’re now implementing consequences for people who refuse.
“As part of efforts to boost vaccination rates, employers may also ask staff who are eligible but choose not to be vaccinated to pay for regular testing, and exclude them from medical benefits linked to Covid-19.
Employers should not terminate or threaten to terminate the service of an employee on the basis of vaccination status alone. But they can terminate an unvaccinated employee who does not comply with reasonable vaccination-differentiated workplace measures.”
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/spore-employers-may-ask-staff-who-choose-not-to-be-vaccinated-to-pay-for-regular
Tourists from low risk countries is exactly why we are in level 4 lockdown mate.
Not Mandatory. I think a combination of the carrot and the stick perhaps would work best?
Agree if you make it compulsory you will get too many people’s backs up just because . Let them think it was their desire is far better . As head of my sales team I always adviced suggest rather than tell have an answer for their questions avoid letting them answer yes or no but plant a seed of doubt in their rejection. The government needs to back the exclusion of those not vaccinated in as many areas as possible especial public transport. They cannot be the nice guy all the time .
…’Hone Harawira & MANA: Once again Hone is leading by doing and his checkpoints to stop Delta is the very kind of self-sustainability and isolationism that could have serious electoral power. Maybe MANA needs to come back?’…
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I think so, and so also does ‘Feed The Kids and protect the moat!’…I always liken it to a tramping party in that you never ‘ go faster than the slowest walker’. We are a family, a tribe, a community, a nation. We look after each other. We care about us as a people from the slowest to the fastest, from the oldest to the youngest.
Even the wolves can teach us that lesson, and if they can, surely we can do as well or better.
Veterans Find Healing With Abused Wolves
https://youtu.be/uBxXfrfcbT8?t=2
The experts told us very early on, that the virus travels in vapour from our breathing.
Eventually this lands on a surface, where it can live for some time.
They also told us it is killed by soapy water.
So, I assume everyone and ALL their baggage that get off an international flight, walks into a sealed tunnel and mist of soapy water.
They walk on a saturated carpet like a foot bath all the way to the bus that takes them to the MIQ.
Then same story there, all the way to their room. The bus of course is cleaned after every use.
It seems to me the Government didn’t listen to the experts and used an amateur slapdash approach.
Last week an MIQ informed us that the infection was carried on a draft of air from one room to another. Really?
I know it’s expensive to set up a really good system, but top quality is often cheaper in the long run.
An island nation with good border procedures wouldn’t have got into this circus of contact tracing.
Time to get water tight.
Faced with an over flowing bath, the average 10 year old, wouldn’t put pots and pans around to catch the water.
They would turn off the tap!
The only recent experience I have with an airport, is TV coverage of the arrival of a flight from Afghanistan.
They just walked across the concrete. How they got to the bus was not shown.
Anyone know more detail about the current procedures?
“Last week an MIQ informed us that the infection was carried on a draft of air from one room to another. Really?
I know it’s expensive to set up a really good system, but top quality is often cheaper in the long run.”
Positive/negative pressure transitions are a standard coolstore process, not rocket science & not exorbitant.
Once again Martin suggests the Fortress Aotearoa concept. But how does that work? There’s the old saying ‘no man is an island’… referring to the ways in which we’re all connected… interdependent. We can be more self sufficient and keep the borders under control – but we still deal with the world at large.
Darwinian Carrot,,,, 29.2 times protection from vaccination https://youtu.be/2vYslhtMbDw
NZ is fighting two diseases ,,, one is a epidemic of stupidity.
Across the board Compulsory Vaccinations is getting into totalitarian martial law territory ,,, it would provide a feeding frenzy for the conspiracy theories and their ‘facts’.
I think it is nonsense creating an arbitrary vaccination percentage that NZ have to achieve to relax our lockdown procedures. A relaxation of measures should be when anyone that wants a vaccine can get a vaccine. This latest outbreak will hopefully have woken up a lethargic public attitude to the vaccine and ensure some of the fence sitters do in fact get vaccinated. Once we get to that point lockdowns should be removed from the toolbox, there are other less evasive measures that we should keep, vaccine passports, home use saliva tests, mask wearing in certain situations and hopefully one day a therapeutic.
Anti- vaccine people have the right to reject the vaccine but they then must live with the consequence of their decision. Yes, this will put a strain on the health sector but this has to be weighed up against the strain on our economy.
Oranga Tamariki: They must be so thankful for Delta distracting the attention of the media and electorate from their insanely racist Critical Race Theory uplifts of Maori children from white step-families. Having the CEO attempt to influence a Judge in the middle of an ongoing case is Donald Trump level molestation of due process.
Martyn, the CRT you refer to is actually written into the Oranga Tamariki Act – see s7aa – and the fact the whole organisation is in the process of transitioning from a child/risk centred paradigm to a Whanau-led paradigm is also indicative of this process.
On the other hand – you are very right about the CEO attempt to influence the judiciary – this is unacceptable in a democracy – if that is what we thing Aotearoa is.
I was down getting a blood test before and everyone waiting outside in the rain for their tests were scathing of our Prime Minister and they were from all walks of life. I live in the South Island and the worm has definitely turned and you could feel the vitriol. A lot of hate speech !
At the end of the day, they can hate. Once it dies down they can as themselves who do they believe would be a better person to lead our country through this? Anyone is not an answer.
Monty, how on earth can you speak for all of The South Island! What worm are you referring to I wonder?
I’m in the South Island too and my experience is very different from yours: What a blessing to feel cared for by the people who call the shots. Ha! Pun unintended.
(By the way, I don’t think it’s right to blame the wet weather on our Prime Minister. There are limits to her power)
Let it Rain, Bon Jovi
Looking like I nailed my 4 weeks of Level 4 Lockdown prediction. Now I’m not saying I am basically Nostradamus (I mean it might be accurate, but I wouldn’t say it myself 😉 ) when it comes to these things… and a few naysayers here at TDB were calling me out… but here we are.
Here is the latest answer to covid 19.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/first-drug-designed-specifically-tackle-21357634
Aren’t we all grateful to be living in such a wonderful country? C’mon ! We are so much better off than so many others! And this govt has done pretty jolly well dealing with this crappy disease, room for improvement of course, but I reckon we should be grateful we have this govt for this time. And I don’t care what idiots like Tucker Carlson say, – we are doing things our way and it WORKS!