The differing rates of vaccination in various New Zealand communities means we must strive to minimise the size of a deprived underclass, writes Mike Williams. Photo / NZME
The differing rates of vaccination in various New Zealand communities means we must strive to minimise the size of a deprived underclass, writes Mike Williams. Photo / NZME
Opinion
As Auckland endures the seemingly endless Covid-19 delta surge and we hang out for the 1pm news to tell us how many new cases, hospitalisations and people are in intensive care, we need to look for good news and silver linings.
The latest Covid Delta outbreak has added just onedeath to our total of 28, which puts us just one fatality ahead of the Vatican City, an independent nation smaller than Waipawa which I once walked around in a couple of hours.
About five million people live here and I looked at the fatality rates of countries with similar populations.
The place most like NZ is probably Ireland and as of yesterday they'd reported 5306 deaths.
In Europe, Croatia, also with a similar population, has suffered 8928 deaths.
The only comparable country which comes close to New Zealand is Norway with 884 Covid deaths.
Although our isolation helped, we are largely the authors of our own success, we locked down hard and early and have continued to behave sensibly.
In Auckland, long coffee breaks have given way to long phone calls and life goes on, though there is resentment building over the rule-breakers plus a desire to do a lot better.
In the past couple of weeks, we have seen two women cheat the border system to cruise around Northland and then behave "unco-operatively" when caught.
This cost Northland a lockdown and this pair, in the view of many of my friends, have earned jail time.
We then heard about a rich kids' party at Redvale, after they published their revels on social media.
An arrest has been made, and a 28-year-old man has been charged with Failing to Comply with the Covid-19 Public Health Response (Alert Level Requirements) Order (No 12) 2021 and was scheduled to appear in North Shore District Court last Friday.
Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki has been charged under the same Act but seems intent on carrying on with his reckless crusade against the very measures that have generated such a low death rate for the country.
Mike Williams says cash incentives will be needed to motivate some to vaccinate. Photo / NZME
The pandemic and the differing rates of vaccination in various New Zealand communities demonstrates to me that we must redouble our efforts to minimise the size of a deprived underclass that has developed over the past half century as a result of the neo-liberalism that took hold in the 1980s, known in this country as "Rogernomics".
Growing up in Hawke's Bay, I was aware of people who were better off than my working-class family, but I can't recall folks who lived in poverty – who didn't have enough money to see the doctor when they needed to or supply their kids with lunches to take to school.
Such an underclass now exists, and my suspicion is that an elevated proportion of these people remain unvaccinated simply because their interface with what is defined as normal society is limited by poverty, mistrust and by access to communication.
The charity I head, the New Zealand Howard League, runs a driver's licence programme for people on probation as well as running in-jail education programmes.
A majority of the clients for our driver's licence programme are recently released prisoners and most would identify as Māori.
Almost none could afford the minimum $300 to get a full licence.
Our Instructors average a nearly 90 per cent success rate in getting these people their licences.
When the Covid Delta outbreak began, we accessed the Covid tracing QR codes for our instructors with the idea that our clients would sign in and record their presence with the instructor.
After a month we asked the 18 instructors about the use of the QR codes by our clients and we found that virtually none of them had the Covid tracing application on their cell-phones.
These codes are a crucial aspect of the contract tracing system which has served us well in limiting the impact of the pandemic.
Quite obviously, if you don't know here the disease is going, it is infinitely harder to contain.
There seem be to a number of reasons for people like the Howard League Driver's Licensing Programme clients not having the tracing app on their cell phones.
Many of our people simply mistrust anything seen as authority and reject the idea of being tracked. These people need a firm assurance from someone they trust that the only use of this data is for Covid tracking.
With the announcement that "vaccination passports" will become inevitable by Christmas, this problem will have to be addressed and quickly.
We run the risk of generating an even bigger underclass that will be completely absent from any system that attempts to manage the disease post-December.
A significant campaign aimed these people – which includes cash incentives – will be vital and should be in the planning stage right now.
• Mike Williams grew up in Hawke's Bay. He is chief executive of the NZ Howard League and a former Labour Party president. All opinions are his and not those of Hawke's Bay Today.
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