Editorial: How the pandemic turned out to be rather predictable

A man sits outside an empty restaurant in Rome's Trastevere area in Italy. Photo / AP

Opinion

Among the few things that have had a good 2020 are conventional wisdom, hindsight and truisms.

Medical experts made some stumbles in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic but have mostly been bang on with their predictions of what would happen if people did or didn't follow advice.

Many people also picked correctly that the virus had to be strongly suppressed for the economy to stand a chance of strongly rebounding - that it wasn't an either/or situation.

The United States appeared months ago to have re-opened too quickly and widely and Europe has since seen its pre-summer hard work evaporate as coronavirus case numbers surge.

And the Covid backlash protests, fatigue and fearmongering around the world now seem fairly inevitable reactions to restrictions.

Political pundits could see early on that a scared public would reward old-fashioned competence, effort and authenticity from their leaders - because that's what people look for in a disaster.

Sure enough, the popularity of several world leaders boomed after Covid-19 hit and the virus has continued to expose the limitations and dangers of nationalistic populism as a governing approach.

The White House has been a whiteboard for unfortunate truisms such as those about "chickens coming home to roost", "you reap what you sow", and "you make your bed, you lie in it".

President Donald Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence only very rarely model good mask-wearing behaviour. They have focused on the development of therapeutics and vaccines rather than trying to control the virus spread.

Aides working for Pence reportedly tested positive for the virus, adding to dozens of White House-linked coronavirus cases. Pence - the man in charge of Trump's "Coronavirus Task Force" - meets the definition of a "close contact" under official US health guidelines, but is continuing to campaign.

Trump, who was hospitalised with the virus, told a rally crowd: "We're rounding the turn, we're doing great. Our numbers are incredible."

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows explicitly told CNN: "We are not going to control the pandemic."

The loudest Republican campaign message appears to be that the virus will continue to not be taken seriously.

But while some countries and leaders overseas appear to have fallen into the trap where
"those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it", that may not be the case in this part of the world.

In Victoria, Premier Daniel Andrews sensibly opted to remain cautious in delaying an announcement of rule changes in Melbourne as he awaited the results for tests linked to an outbreak in northern suburbs. Why fall at the last hurdle?

Here, the Ministry of Health reported some encouraging trends on public buy-in of the test and trace programme.

It said on Sunday that the number of daily Covid Tracer scans had doubled since last Wednesday and called the testing levels over the long weekend "pleasing".

The ministry said: "The more we scan, the safer we'll be. The faster we respond, the faster we stop it."

Perhaps the grim overseas news and the shipping virus cases have reminded Kiwis that a united approach is the best way to combat Covid-19. The cluster outbreaks demonstrated that the tracing system works.

Supporting it is the best way to avoid the need for future restrictions. It could at some stage allow for the reduction of quarantine time with a combination of negative tests.

Signs that the public can adjust are welcome as further refinements of New Zealand's virus policies will likely be needed.