The Tyranny of Public Health

Coronavirus: Health is Important, But Must Not Be Dominant


Luke Malpass
Stuff

When does the cure become worse than the disease? That is the question that has to be being asked around the Government's lockdown policy prescription for coronavirus.

Yet consider the following: across the ditch in Australia, the economy has not gone into full lockdown – it is more akin to New Zealand's so-called Level 3. People ought to socially distance, work from home if possible, and large gatherings are banned. Pubs, hotels and restaurants are closed, as is the border.

But some retail is still open, schools are still open, as is childcare – which has now been made free! (although people are advised to keep their children at home if possible). You can still go to the shops, hardware store, buy clothes and generally go about your business.

The Australians are pleased because their Covid infection rate appears to have flattened off without battening all the hatches. It has had more than 5000 cases and 27 deaths. The death rate is much higher than NZ, but the infection rate is similar. Only time will tell which approach was better, if either.


The Australian Government has announced a wage subsidy scheme similar to that of New Zealand, a flat rate, per week, that probably keeps no-one happy, but does prevent widespread penury – at least in the short term. According to Westpac Australia, that will have the effect of reducing unemployment from a staggering 17 per cent to 9 per cent.

The thing about Westpac's unemployment prediction is that its "no action" scenario went from producing an 11 per cent jobless rate to a 17 per cent one in just over week. Ten million people signed up for unemployment benefits in the US in just two weeks.

Just think about that for a moment – Australia was staring down the barrel of 17 per cent unemployment. Back in New Zealand, the highest such estimate has been 30 per cent.

The economic mayhem has two causes: actions taken in the rest of the world, and then the deliberate actions of the Government in New Zealand. Both have been made on health grounds.

New Zealand clearly can't help what happens in other parts of the world – but we can control what happens here. And the overriding priority of the Government must be to get New Zealand out of lockdown as soon as possible.

Yet on Wednesday, Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield admitted that there was no plan B, and that the rate of deaths forecast for New Zealand was unacceptable.

But here lies the rub: the Government cannot – and should not – prioritise health considerations, even including deaths, above all else. At the root of the Covid-19 fear across the world has been a public policy – and therefore, to put it bluntly, retail politics – problem. . . .

It seems that the response of this Government is strongly in keeping with its cautious, technocratic and deeply conventional nature: it does what the officials say, saying it is guided by the experts and "the science", whatever that old trope means in this situation.

The lockdown is clearly a case of "no pain, no gain", but for the enormous pain this is going to cause, the country had better get the gain. Because every day the lockdown goes on – especially if it continues for an ill-defined period after four weeks – will put more businesses against the wall, and more workers out of jobs. Some for a long time.