I wanted to start by saying that I am pretty pissed off that so much of the world is going through a pretty shitty time with Coronavirus, and sadly what you are going through is so much worse due to in many cases incompetent (and self interested) leadership.
I’ve seen many comments over the last few weeks about New Zealands response. Many people want to downplay the results of the response as ‘luck’ or because we are small, or not densely populated. Here are my comments about that just to clear the air and provide some facts about our situation.
We are fortunate yes, that we are an island nation, closing our borders has a very clear cut result, you cant illegally jump the border, so that part is true. But our government did choose to close the borders and for returning residents quarantine or isolate them. Immediately this closing of the borders had a deep effect on many industries here.
“Our population is spread out so we don’t have the same issues with population density and physical distancing”. Not true. While we don’t compare to New York City we do beat out cities like Sydney (CBD), Australia. We also have a generally high population of flatters (4-8 on average students sharing a flat) and our housing is tightly packed here. We live mostly in our cities. So density is an issue for us.
Economy and employment. I’ve heard people say “how does closing the borders and going into lockdown actually affect NZ anyway”. Well, Tourism is our biggest export industry, contributing 21% of foreign exchange earnings. and Tourism employs 8.4% of our workforce directly. So its a definite sacrifice. People are losing their jobs, we’re not without loss but we are looking at closed borders to the majority of the world for a very long time, we’ll need to adapt, domestic tourism fingers crossed can start back up in the next few weeks.
We are a small nation so could afford to pay our citizens/residents to stay home during this time (many of us received a wage subsidy). All systems like our social system including universal healthcare are scalable, in fact if you have a larger population you have greater buying power with industry than we do.
The luck factor. This one pisses me off because there was no “It’ll go away” attitude, We didn’t luck-out. We actually had to put a lot of effort in. From the very beginning (except for a couple of cruise ship mishaps) we were on it – testing, contact tracing, media coverage on physical distancing and hand washing, then soon after that, the month long lockdown began. And not all lockdowns are the same. Some countries were stricter than us, but from what I’ve experienced and researched, our lockdown was one of the strictest of the western nations. Literally only the essentials were available (Medical treatment and Groceries), that’s it, and we couldn’t socialise outside our bubble. But we got on with it. Still are.
I’m not writing this to give myself and those in NZ a pat on the back, It’s just for those who maybe don’t have the full story. There’s a temptation to see what happens as out of our control and some elements are, but for countries where the cases have plummeted its because of action, not inaction, and luck has very little to do with it. We were projected to have 1,000,000 symptomatic cases (we have a population of 5 million) by mid winter if we did nothing. Worst case scenario (without overwhelming the health system) was 27,600 deaths. We’ve had 21 deaths so far and we’ve now had 2 days of zero cases, we’re at the tail end, and it has come as the result of strict fast action and competency at the top. Its come because we haven’t been drawn into much of a debate on the economy. The economy was always going to take a knock regardless. In a couple of weeks, most businesses and schools will reopen, a chance for a rebound for the economy.
I don’t have to worry about opening back up to earn a living, I’m supported but so many people around the world don’t have that choice. If you want to eat, you need to earn, and put yourself at risk to do so. that sucks. This is why leadership matters, and it breaks my heart that many do not have competent caring leadership at this time. While I don’t feel that we as a country were ‘lucky’,
I myself feel lucky to be where I am, with the kind of leadership we have. Yet I’m incredibly saddened that so many people have died across the world, and so many have got so very sick, because they didn’t have a choice about whether to expose themselves or not. It pisses me off to no end that some governments care more about the economy than they do about lives. It’s not ok, and it didn’t need to be this way. I’m sorry that this is happening to you.