There are 19 new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand. A fifth person has died, the third from a cluster of cases at a rest home in Christchurch.
Opinion
COMMENT:
The Prime Minister once told Parliament that government must help us "to achieve things together that we cannot achieve alone". If government keeping to its role and executing well was important then, it's vital now.
Government has a unique role in keeping the virus out and isolating it whereit appears within our borders. It can put in place rules that apply to everyone and acquire and share information such as testing and economic data to inform decision-making.
Most policy problems involve pursuing multiple goals at once, though. With Covid-19, the problem is that fighting the virus involves enormous costs. Most forecasts are for a drop exceeding 10 per cent of GDP.
Some say the trade-off is lives versus money, but wealth equals health. One captain of industry recently said being poorer might be like living in the 1950s when he grew up happily. He didn't mention life expectancy. Back then, and in poorer countries today, everyone died 10 years younger than now.
Only a few months ago, affording the same cancer drugs as wealthier Australia was one of our biggest policy debates. Cancer check-ups and other treatments missed as a result of the lockdown must be counted. Unfortunately, there may more suicides as a result of economic devastation than deaths from Covid-19.
These are the difficult issues that require debate. It's not good enough to fall into groupthink in the name of unity. We do not have the decisiveness and discipline that totalitarian states can draw on. So, we must compensate with our strengths. We are a free society with open debate.
The Prime Minister has extraordinary communication skills, but anyone could deliver the message "Stay home or tens of thousands of people will die". What's harder is getting better data about the costs of the virus and government policies, informing the private sector which needs to plan, being open to more private sector involvement, and putting in place clear rules for a post-Covid-19 world.
On data, we still haven't tested for asymptomatic cases. Random testing and antibody tests may show true infection rates much higher than reported cases. Such data would help us understand when best to lift the lockdown, let alone whether eradication is even viable. Without good data, we are left with blunt and costly strategies like stay home, save lives.
Also bearing into that decision is the cost-effectiveness of anti-Covid-19 policies. In a rare discussion of this topic, the New Zealand Initiative says that we would normally spend 6.1 per cent of GDP on, say, road safety, if we thought it would save 37,000 lives. Distasteful trade-offs, perhaps, but they don't disappear if you ignore them. Since the forecast cases and deaths didn't appear even before the lockdown took effect (there is a two-week lag), we need to keep reassessing our direction.
It would be better if we could eat our cake and have it too, as Australia appears to be doing with more economic activity allowed and very good epidemic numbers. Castalia, an economics consultancy, has produced an assessment of measures based on their cost-effectiveness. This sort of thinking needs to be front and centre.
Act Party leader David Seymour. Photo / Mark Mitchell
One of the most cost-effective measures it identifies is rapid tracing and isolation of cases as they arise. This leads to another role for government: procuring the best private sector solutions. Health Minister David Clark promised a portal that would triage private sector offers such as those for rapid testing and tracing technology. We still do not have one.
In its regulatory role, government must give business certainty about who can open and how they can operate safely. The mantra of "essential" is too blunt and dictatorial. Its absurdities have shaken public confidence. It must give way to practical rules on operating safely that businesses are accountable for following.
Without certainty, businesses that could operate safely will fold and jobs will be needlessly lost. But we're told they'll be given two days' notice of what a level 3 world might look like on April 20, the same day that many businesses find out who, if anyone, is still paying last month's bills.
• David Seymour is leader of the Act Party and the MP for Epsom.
