Five hundred more Defence Force staff are being deployed to managed isolation facilities and the Government is also directly hiring security guards to help control the centres. It comes as officials report six new cases of Covid-19 today, one of which is in managed isolation.
COMMENT:
In a world grappled by a raging pandemic New Zealand as a nation has fared well in comparison to many other countries in the fight to keep Covid-19 out. But the battle is far from won for our small, island nation.
The developments in the past week demonstrate tous all how virulent this virus is and how easy our Covid-free community status can evaporate with a moments' notice.
With the Auckland region in level 3 lockdown and the rest of the country practising stricter social distancing measures at level 2, we are far from out of the woods.
Locking down is the right thing to do to protect the health of our people and our economy in the long term.
However, looking ahead, going back and forth into lockdown is not a sustainable solution, this approach will likely break us as nation socially and economically.
We need a better strategy to keep Covid-19 out of New Zealand if we are going to continue down the path of elimination.
We haven't made the problem of the global pandemic go away; we are only deferring the issue. With over 22 million cases of the coronavirus infection worldwide, more than 776,000 deaths recorded globally (as of August 18) and no plausible vaccine to combat this plight to humanity as of yet.
The spread of Covid-19 infecting the global population by the day is growing at an alarming rate, only increasing the risk of it arriving more frequently at New Zealand's borders. We are kidding ourselves if we think we can prevent the virus from coming in with the current measures in place.
Rightly so, we should be holding the government to account and asking why more thorough testing wasn't taking place at our borders and quarantine facilities. All of our collective wellbeing depends on it. But it seems the media and us as the public are not asking the right questions.
A Covid-19 testing station at Otara. Photo / Dean Purcell
We should be looking at the bigger picture, not getting so drawn into focusing only on questions that merely probe the day to day operations of what has currently been set up to protect NZ from the virus.
I'm no expert in the management of the borders or quarantine facilities, but it seems only reasonable to ask the following:
1. Why are we continuing to manage the entry of people into NZ through our most populated and biggest economic centre in the country when there are other options available to us?
2. Why have we not set up dedicated Covid-19 quarantine processing facilities that don't rely on hotels and their staff who come and go into the community?
3. Why are Air NZ crew returning to the country not being tested comprehensively upon arrival and then again when they are self-isolating at home?
There is so much at stake to people's livelihoods for us to drop the ball at our borders or quarantine facilities. We need to rethink our long-term strategy and graduate from the initial tactical measures put in place if we want to reduce the risk of this pandemic taking hold here in New Zealand.
Thinking about the bigger picture, we have many other options available to us when managing our entry points into the country. As just one example (there are many more), we have Ohakea Air Force base situated in the lower North Island with the ability to land large inbound aircraft arriving in NZ.
Ohakea is away from major populations, cities and the many businesses that are the powerhouse of New Zealand's economy. It is surrounded with land owned by the government, as well as privately, where quarantine facilities could be erected fairly quickly to house and support those coming into the country.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield arrive for the Covid-19 update. Photo / Mark Mitchell
We could create a dedicated workforce to service these facilities, putting in place additional safety measures preventing staff from coming and going into the community without testing negative first.
Going back into lockdown in Auckland is estimated to cost the country billions of dollars, along with further losses to businesses with the potential of some being wiped out and many people losing their jobs as a result.
The cost of setting up dedicated quarantine facilities and changing the way we operate our borders during this global pandemic is a drop in the ocean, compared with the cost of having to go in and out of lockdowns.
This latest outbreak has been a reality check. We need to learn from our shortcomings and mistakes.
If we want to keep Covid-19 out of Aotearoa we need to be bolder, apply some Kiwi ingenuity and start thinking outside the box. More importantly, keep the virus outside the major centres where we are at far greater risk of further outbreaks occurring.
We haven't succeeded with the current approach of stopping Covid-19 at the borders. It's time for the government to rethink their strategy if it is really serious about eliminating coronavirus from our South Pacific shores.
