Covid-19: Here’s why Jacinda Ardern’s British critics are wrong – Stuff.co.nz

OPINION: British columnist Matthew Lesh, writing in The Telegraph , claimed Jacinda Ardern was trapped in her "arrogant Zero Covid policy.

Unfortunately the claim is devoid of accuracy and demonstrates an absence of proper research, which is ironic given the writer is the head of research of the Adam Smith Institute.

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University of Otago Professor of Public Health Michael Baker was part of the group which advised the Government on coronavirus.

To throw back at him his offensive opening sentence, there is no poetic justice in his article for the honest intellectual Smith was.

Lesh does acknowledge that New Zealands economic growth has been high and mortality low during the pandemic, but he downplays the significance as if it is only a 2020 phenomenon.

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First, through its elimination strategy, New Zealand has one of the lowest Covid-19 mortality rates in the world 5 deaths per million.

Compare this with the United Kingdoms 1,961 deaths per million (20 August). If we had followed the UKs more laissez faire approach we could have had over 10,000 deaths instead of 26. New Zealands last Covid-19 death was in February 2021.

Second, the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development has ranked New Zealand the best performing member country for its Covid-19 response including economic performance.

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Ian Powell, former executive director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS).

And thirdly, New Zealands elimination strategy has given us amongst the highest levels of freedom from lockdowns in the OECD over the last 18 months, based on the Oxford Stringency Index and Economist Magazines Normalcy Index.

Lesh is misleading in his description of New Zealand following a zero Covid strategy. In fact, our elimination strategy in its focus on community transmission is more practical than this. It recognises that we might not keep the virus out of the country all the time but, if we get an outbreak, we will stamp it out quickly in order to protect the public.

That is why New Zealand went into a national lockdown as soon as we detected the beginning of our first Delta variant Covid-19 outbreak on August 17.

Genomic testing showed the virus was introduced from New South Wales by an infected traveller who arrived on August 7. The virus had not been circulating for a few weeks in New Zealand.

Lesh is wrong to claim that Australia has seen rising daily cases despite continued harsh lockdowns. Through quick strong lockdowns Delta variant outbreaks have been largely eliminated in the states of Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia along with Northern Territory (Tasmania has managed to keep it out completely).

Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

SNSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian speaks during a Covid-19 update and press conference on July 26.

Cases are rising, dangerously so, in New South Wales but, despite the protestations of its Premier to the contrary, it is because of the slow response and very loose lockdown enabling the virus to continue to spread. Harsh lockdowns have worked in Australia; loose ones havent.

Using our low vaccination rate for alleging that Prime Minister Ardern has little serious interest in protecting New Zealanders is dishonest. Our vaccination rates are dictated by vaccine supply which has been hard to control. As a small economy in the OECD we have less negotiating leverage than much bigger economies and countries such as the UK that are vaccine producers.

In fact, we are comparable with the much bigger economy of Australia and by the end of this year every adult New Zealander is scheduled to have the opportunity to be fully vaccinated.

Further, the very quick national lockdown currently underway is hardly the behaviour of a Prime Minister who has little serious interest in protecting New Zealanders.

Lesh claims that New Zealands vaccination centres were closed down because of the lockdown. This is disingenuous. Recognising that our workforce capacity would be over-stretched the government suspended vaccination for one day to allow essential testing centres to get up and running. Now we have both vaccinations and testing for Delta surging concurrently.

Once the population is fully vaccinated by late 2021, and we know more about the implications of various policy options, New Zealand will be well placed to make an informed choice about continuing with an elimination strategy or switching to a looser suppression approach if that appears optimal. Until then, we hope the country can continue to keep its options open.

When Adam Smith advocated his invisible hand in market economies we dont believe he envisaged that objectivity and empirical evidence would be thrown out the window as a consequence in the way Lesh has done.

Ian Powell, former Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, and Michael Baker, Professor of Public Health, University of Otago, Wellington,

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Covid-19: Here's why Jacinda Ardern's British critics are wrong - Stuff.co.nz