Covid 19 coronavirus: Funerals just the start of PM Jacinda Ardern's difficulty at level 2

COMMENT

The Government's backdown on a limit of 10 people at a funeral at level 2 is a case of a compromise between politics, public pressure and public health.

Health Minister David Clark set out the decision to bump that number up to 50 at a funeral in cases where a funeral director secured an exemption and had the necessary health measures in place.

It came after days of people speaking of their devastation in the media, and a debate in which National Party leader Simon Bridges found himself on the same side as public opinion while PM Jacinda Ardern was not.

Bridges had highlighted the apparent ludicrousness of allowing places such as cinemas, restaurants and sports fields to have up to 100 people while venues for funerals and tangi were only allowed 10.

It was inevitable the Government would buckle.

There were reasons for the initial limit – solid enough for the Prime Minister to defend that decision for three days before finally buckling to public pressure and common sense.

Those reasons were that people tend to comfort each other at funerals, and physical contact increased the risk of transmission.

Ardern was imposing a rule to ensure that did not happen – Bridges argued that people's common sense and measures by funeral directors and marae elders would do just as good a job.

Ardern also repeatedly raised the clusters that had broken out at funerals overseas.

Ardern's greatest fear at this moment is that Covid-19 will take hold again.

That is no small thing: the most immediate threat to getting on with trying to rebuild the economy is a resurgence of the virus, and a return to lockdown.

So a highly cautious approach is understandable.

But the main reason the lockdowns at level 3 and 4 worked was because the public saw the need for the rules that were in place.

The funerals debate highlighted that things were much messier at level 2 than at level 3 and 4.

One of the reasons the lockdowns at level 3 and 4 worked was because the rules were tight – and very clear.

The rules at level 4 were very clear, largely because people were not allowed to do much at all.

The as we move down the levels, more freedoms are allowed. The casualty of that freedom is clarity.

More extensive rules are required to cover many more situations. As a result we have pages and pages of who can do what and when.

Many of those rules are also open to differing interpretations, as evidenced by the conflicting positions set out by the PM and Winston Peters as to whether 100 people could attend a wake provided they sat at different tables.

Funerals are unlikely to be the only example of people challenging apparently unjust or contradictory limits in the weeks ahead.

Bridges has already moved on to asking why strip clubs and pubs are allowed up to 100 people, but churches are not.