GUEST BLOG: Pat O’Dea – We still need a plan
In my previous essay I had suggested that the government needed a plan to deal with a community outbreak. The government have pretty much followed that plan. But now WE need to have a plan too.
If you had to choose, would you rather be Healthy, or Wealthy?
What goes for an individual goes for a country.
Under pressure from the right, Prime Minister Ardern has put protecting the economy, ahead of protecting public health.
The government has abandoned their previous policy of ‘elimination’ of the virus for one of ‘suppression’ of the virus.
Yesterday the Prime Minister said that failure to eliminate community transmission of the virus will no longer be a reason not to drop to level 2. This is a departure from her previous policy of elimination. The possibility of going to level 4 to eliminate the virus was not raised as a possibility by the Prime Minister.
From TVNZ
6.13pm: Ms Ardern says we do not have to see zero cases of Covid-19 in order to move levels, but to instead identify the “perimeter” of the cluster.
This change in policy direction is opposed by the Maori Party.
From TVNZ
2.53pm: The Māori Party is calling for the country to move to Alert Level 4 and for the border to be shut for two weeks in response to Covid-19’s resurgence in the community.
Co-leader John Tamihere told RNZ Auckland’s borders should have been shut down immediately after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s announcement of community transmission on Tuesday night.
What is extraordinary about the Maori Party’s position is that a Level 4 Lockdown goes against Maori Traditional norms relating to Tangihanga which are traditionally large gatherings.
The Maori Party are following the science. The Government are following the economic imperatives of capitalism.
All politics is pressure
The novel coronavirus Sars-Cov2 is spreading in the community.
Unlike last time there will be no nationwide lockdown to contain it.
Despite the overwhelming success of the last lockdown there will be no repeat, and NZ will join the rest of the world infected with the pathogen, from here we will spread it to our Pacific Island neighbours.
But why have those with their fingers on the levers of power given up?
All politics is pressure.
At the moment all the pressure is coming from the corporate sector and finance capital not to have another lockdown. The corporate sector financiers were caught off guard by the government’s swift announcement of the first lockdown.
For a brief moment in time the power of finance capital was suspended. Under the lockdown the whole superstructure of profit and loss, that sits on top of the real productive economy, was brought to a screeching halt. Meantime the productive economy, the economy that feeds and houses us, that keeps us healthy, never missed a beat. In fact this ‘essential’ underlying economy worked better than ever. Things we were told were impossible to do were done. Overnight the homeless were housed, in effect a universal basic income was legislated most workers were paid to stay at home at 85% of their weekly wage, public transport was made fare free. Carbon emissions dropped to near zero. Community transmission of the virus was ended.
All these things the corporate sector found intolerable, and so has mounted a rear guard action to prevent any repeat.
The most obvious attack on the government strategy of ‘elimination’ was the hugely expensive high court action taken to try and get the government’s imposition of the Level 4 lockdown declared illegal.. ‘How dare the elected representatives of the people tell business what to do’.
So why did the government and the Prime Minister declare a Level 4 Lockdown in the first place?
Pressure from below.
Like most governments around the world, at the first news of spread of the virus in the community, our government brought in partial measures to contain it.
However medical professionals and grass roots front line health workers felt these measures were not enough and demanded more.
As the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country surpassed 100 these front line medical workers demanded more.
Dr Michael Courtenay is among more than 67,000 people who supported a petition, started by Urgent Care Physician Dr Kelvin Ward, calling for New Zealand to go to level 4 alert to prevent the health system being overrun and “countless unnecessary deaths”.
67,000 front line health workers voiced their strong opinion to the government that the Level 2 Lockdown imposed by the government was not good enough.
Within hours of this petition landing on the Prime MInisters’s desk, she skipped Level 3 Lockdown to go straight to Level 4.
The trigger point for the health care workers was 100 cases. If the number of infections reaches this number again, it will be these front Line health care workers who will be negatively affected if the virus begins to spread exponentially..
Dr Michael Courtenay and Dr Kelvin Ward, if you are reading this, I urge you to consider launching your petition again.
Waiting to see what the movers and shakers have in store for us, is not an option.
What best serves the health workers is not being swamped like the Drs and Nurses in the UK and Italy and New York State.
Itally had one of the best health systems in Europe and they couldn’t cope with exponential spread.
The same in this country. If the Level 3 Lockdown doesn’t work, and the pathogen starts spreading exponentially in the community our health system will not be able to cope.
Food production and distribution systems will start to break down as they have in the US.
At the time, the Prime Minister grimly said of the Lockdown “There is no plan B”
There is still no plan B, if the number of infections reaches, or surpasses the trigger point of 100 cases, Level 4 Lockdown is the only option..
Pat is an activist, Unionist and writer.
The lockdown was not free it was paid for by borrowed money which has to be paid back. This cannot be constantly repeated as at some point we will become over committed the cost of borrowing will increase and not be possible.
It needs to be accepted that extermination of this virus is impossible as is the extermination of cancer or strokes or a miriade of other illnesses . These other illnesses theoretical could be wiped out with regular medical checks and tests paid for by the government but we cannot afford to do that so we live with them. l believe this is will be the outcome with this virus.
We did the right think to get on top of it now is the time to be realistic and live with it until a vaccine is found and develope the best tracing system possible
Trev your comment reflect what many others are suggesting but no the logic is not viable.
Firstly cancer and stroke tend to be conditions that develop over a long period with lifestyle and age playing a part. They both usually have some prospect of being treated when discovered but sometimes discovery is after death. The both are treated by the Public Health system. To wipe out stroke and cancer you would need a radical change in how Kiwis feed and care for children.
The only successful control of covid19 involves shutting down the spread of infection.
NZ appeared to have done that successfully but a new source of non community sourced infection has arisen.
Allowing the virus to be virtually eliminated is a lot cheaper than allowing ongoing infections which will overload the health system and economy possibly ad finitum or for years.
There is no vaccine yet that has shown to perform immunity over a long period. The socially expensive so called “herd immunity” may not exist in spite of radical claims made with dodgy data. Sweden does not have “herd Immunity”. Information sources need to be carefully checked.
SARS was controlled by controlling infection not a vaccine and still a SARS vaccine for universal use has not been developed after16 years.
Viruses can’t be “got rid off”. There are uncountable virii world-wide. There’s plentiful research available, notably that of Dr Russell Blaylock:
https://www.technocracy.news/blaylock-face-masks-pose-serious-risks-to-the-healthy/
Denis Rancourt is another who has published re the lack of safety re mask-wearing re Covid-19. It is obvious that neither the PM nor the DG of Health have read any of the above researchers’ writings, nor any other comparable research. As a (retd) NZRN, I used masks for many years in the course of my work, but never as people are using them now – INCORRECTLY! Most mask-wearers are not ‘wearing’ their mask correctly, are constantly contaminating the mask they are “wearing”, removing the mask to smoke, etc., etc. I’m listening to Jim Mora & someone is spouting more ignorance re the “necessity” to wear masks!
You are right Pat. The quick move to Level four was driven by pressure from medical science and frontline health professionals. And it worked to get to ‘elimination’ which was defined as no active cases for an extended period of time.
That has not changed. The medical science pressure continues and the goal remains elimination.
The rapid response this time was the result of the system put in place the first time and improved since. One cluster has been contained, while its origin is still to be found. Gene technology is only as good as the border testing but it seems that a breach of quarantine at the border is less likely than transmission through frozen or chilled goods.
There is no scientific reason that with the political will necessary the source cannot be found and a return to the elimination strategy achieved.
It is true that finance capital is pushing for opening up the borders at the expense of human lives, and the National Opposition and anti-science conspiracy theories are pushing in the same direction. So the question is what political plan do we need.
The Maori Party solution is bizarre. It wants us to go to Level 4 and abandon the election well short of the 100 active cases you use as the trigger.
Wrong on two counts.
First, no need to shut down the economy when we can tighten the controls easily by making compulsory PPE and regular testing at all points of entry including that of chilled cargo.
A Level 4 shutdown works against the productive economy providing jobs and goods to meet the needs of workers. Workers through their unions can move to take control of the safeguards necessary in the workplace.
Second, the Covid strategy being administered by the Labour government is working. Delaying or abandoning the election at this point would jeopardize that strategy and open the country to the forces of the class enemy that wants to replace that strategy for the Trumpian/Bolsonaro/Modi strategy of making working people pay with their lives for the failing capitalist system.
The plan for NZ working people should be to get behind the Labour Government and work for the its return on September 19 as a majority government not bound by any deals with coalition partners holding back the social ‘transformation’ promised in 2017.
That way we can put Labour to the test. Must it succumb to the pressure from the ruling class to force a compromise where profits trump people’s lives despite pressure from below?
While some of us will say yes, the vast majority will disagree.
If (or when) it does then the working people will need their own plan for a mass workers’ party to fight for a government that will solve the looming capitalist crisis of a long depression, compounded by the climate emergency as well the certainty of further pandemics.
Dave; Simple way is to test test test as WHO said we should on 17th March 2020; – and now follow what China did when they mass tested all 11 million residents of Yuhan within five days, so can we can’t we?.
Great summary Dave.
This new Covid outbreak may be a blessing in disguise. We are all guilty of being complacent and what do you expect when we had 102 days Covid free. This 102 days lulled us into a false sense of security. Now we know how important tracking and tracing is, wearing masks, getting tested especially if we have symptoms. Our government has given us the the room to make decisions and to be responsible ourselves. We need to take advantage of this so they don’t have to enforce mandatory masks wearing or tracking us. We need to start planning on how we can keep businesses open under different levels. We need to be vigilant it is no good fighting amongst ourselves or blaming this will only make matters worse. We also need to look around us, the rest of the world is in a mess. We need to be thankful for what we have and where we are as this has protected us.