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Home / Business / Small Business

Covid 19 coronavirus: Heather du Plessis-Allan - Level 4 for another week will tip many businesses over

Heather du Plessis-Allan
By Heather du Plessis-Allan
NZ Herald·
20 Apr, 2020 07:15 AM3 mins to read

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Five more days will tip many businesses over. Photo / Dean Purcell

Five more days will tip many businesses over. Photo / Dean Purcell

Heather du Plessis-Allan
Opinion by Heather du Plessis-Allan
Heather du Plessis-Allan is the drive host for Newstalk ZB and a columnist for the Herald on Sunday
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COMMENT:

I'm so disappointed on behalf of small and medium-sized businesses.

I can't even begin to think how hard this must be for them, the prospect of trying to last an extra five days.

For some, they could barely last four weeks. Five more days will tip many over.

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From the relative comfort and seclusion of lockdown bubbles, I'm not sure enough people realise how hard this will be for businesses.

It's insulating to have the PM and the finance minister say it's just two more working days. It's not.

It's five. Which businesses that have been shut for four weeks would NOT work all five available days to catch up?

Many retailers would have shipped over the weekend … same with takeaway outlets … same with construction and manufacturing.

I'm disappointed because it's patently not necessary. Being in level 4 is not necessary and probably never needed to be.

The PM herself admits our level 3 is really not that much different to our level 4 except businesses can operate. If it's not much different, why not allow it?

Discover more

Opinion

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Have we gone too hard in lockdown?

14 Apr 03:15 AM
Opinion

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Why can't Bunnings and the hairdresser open?

16 Apr 04:05 AM
Opinion

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Are people going to start breaking lockdown rules?

17 Apr 04:00 AM
Opinion

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Lockdown D-Day - it's a big call tomorrow

18 Apr 05:00 PM

I think the key is the Ministry of Health. I suspect it hasn't been able to get its act together this whole time.

I suspect we were put into level 4 because our health ministry didn't have the contact tracing capacity to track down contacts of infected people fast enough.

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It didn't have the testing capacity to know where cases were.

I suspect we are staying in lockdown because of exactly that same reason.

Ashely Bloomfield admitted yesterday that its contact tracing ability is not at gold standard and won't be for another week.

The ministry has had weeks to get ready. It even had the Ayesha Verrall report telling it to sort it out for at least a week.

Its inability to do that is costing us a huge price.

The inability or unwillingness of our leaders to look across at Australia and see we can achieve the same results while not crippling business is costing us a huge price.

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It's not going to do a lot for economic credibility of the parties of government at election time, when they tell small, medium and even large businesses that all their decisions took into account the plight of business. That clearly didn't happen today.

• Covid19.govt.nz: The Government's official Covid-19 advisory website

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